After Ahsoka
by eilonwyasaka
Summary: Ezra and Kanan find a holocron documenting Ahsoka's life after leaving the Jedi Order.
1. Prologue

**Prologue: Ashes of the Phoenix**

Ezra hesitated. "This doesn't feel right Kanan."

The young man's mentor turned to look at him. No, not look. Face. Kanan would never look at anything again. Maul had seen to that. "I know. But the Rebellion needs information, and Ahsoka played a lot of her cards close to her chest. If she kept any intel on the Empire that we don't know about, we need to find it."

"Yeah, that's the part that I don't get," Ezra said. "Why us? We spend a lot of time on the front line. If anyone's going to be captured by the Empire, wouldn't it be us? Wouldn't it be better for sensitive information like that to be found by…I don't know. Commander Sato? That Mon Mothma lady? Even Hera would be a better Fulcrum than us, she can always see the big picture."

"We're not the new Fulcrum," Kanan grimaced. Ezra was reminded that Ahsoka had been a mentor to both of them. "It's not up to us to figure out what to do with anything we find, we just have to pass it on to high command."

"Right…" Ezra said skeptically. "But that doesn't explain why we're the ones who have to—"

"Because I know her better than anyone," Kanan snapped.

Anger poured off of him. With that new mask of his, sometimes Ezra couldn't help but feel Ahsoka wasn't the only one he lost on Malachor.

"She fought with Rex in the war, sure, but I grew up in her home. We shared classes with Yoda. Her beginnings were the same as mine. We were Jedi of the Order." Kanan seemed to realize he'd lost his temper, and suddenly his entire face was mask-like. "If she left any hints, there's no more secure locks than to hide them in a way only a Jedi could find. So that's why I'm here. You're here because I'm hoping she might have one more lesson for you."

Kanan faced the door once again.

"…And this doesn't feel like an invasion of privacy to you?" Ezra asked, hoping the man would answer instead of the mask.

"It did. That's why I asked Hera to check first and clear out her wardrobe of anything embarrassing."

"But what if there was something import—" Ezra noticed the sly grin that slid across Kanan's face. "You're joking?"

Kanan's smile dissolved. "I'm sorry. This is a time of mourning. I know how much she meant to—"

"No, don't be sorry," Ezra said. "We need more laughs right now. But before we go in…"

"What is it?"

"What's the over-under on us finding lingerie?"

"Ezra! She was a Jedi! She didn't—"

"—do the things you're trying to do with Hera?" Ezra said with a smirk.

"And this conversation is now over," Kanan said, escaping into Ahsoka's quarters.

Ezra followed.

Kanan stood rigidly in the center of the dark room, focused upon nothing Ezra could see. "I don't feel anything in here," he said. "Lend me your eyes, Ezra. What do you see?"

Ezra flipped on the lights. He wasn't sure how he expected Ahsoka to decorate. Spaceflight left a person with a lot of free time, and even Jedi training left him plenty of time to research his idol's adventures during the Clone Wars. So many planets visited, so many tremendously important people she'd met, and yet this spacious room was almost bare.

"There's not much," Ezra said. That was putting it mildly. As a commander, Ahsoka had enough room to raise a small family, but outside of a couple pieces of furniture, her personal belongings could probably be carried in a backpack. "Her furniture is all up against one wall, the rest of the room is just empty space."

"Probably for training," Kanan mused.

"A low, hard bed. Only big enough for one. A chest of drawers, a bathroom—"

"Inside?" Kanan asked.

"A toilet, a shower—"

"Not the bathroom, the drawers!" Kanan said with exasperation.

"Oh, right. Just some clothes. An outfit that pretty much looks like the one she always wore, a full robe, and… well it's not lingerie, but what do you make of this?"

Ezra held up a sheer silk ensemble. It was a beautiful hue of turquoise, with actual gold lining and…was that a crown?

Kanan shook his head, "Not important. What else?"

"All that's left is the table right in front of you. Here." Ezra guided Kanan's hand to the surface of the shin-high table. "I don't think it's what we're looking for. All that's on it is junk."

Kanan shook his head, "There's no other junk in here; she's no hoarder. If she kept anything, it's important. What's on the table?"

"Not much," Ezra said honestly. "A gray helmet with yellow markings. No language I can understand. Not a trooper helmet either. It looks custom, but it definitely wasn't hers."

"What makes you say that?" Kanan asked.

"It's too small," Ezra answered. "No room for her…head things."

"Montrals. Anything else?"

"Um, a jar of white sand. A couple busted lightsabers. And a holocron that doesn't—whoa."

"What?" Kanan asked. "What is it?"

"Well, I was about to say the holocron looked broken since it wasn't glowing but, er, it started glowing. And…okay, and now there's a hologram of Ahsoka."

The small, glowing togruta began to speak, "Hello, I am Ahsoka Tano. Contained on this holocron are the stories and lessons I've compiled in my efforts to live my life and make others' lives better. If you're hearing this, then I've gone missing and am probably dead. If that isn't the case, you're probably Imperial, working for the Empire, or Ezra. Much of the information to follow is very personal, very sensitive, and may be integral to the destabilization of the empire and the future of the force."

"Ahsoka must have set some trigger for it to play around us. Or Jedi. Or rebels." Kanan mused, "I mean, there must have been some security protocols in place, right?"

Ezra shushed his master.

"Context is of the utmost importance. As such, I mean to not only tell my secrets and, in many cases, the secrets of my friends and adversaries, but also what that information means to both myself and to them. I apologize if you are in a hurry, but I urge you to listen to everything I have to say before acting on anything you learn. Knowledge, ignorance, and mistaking the one for the others can be the mostly deadly weapons in the Galaxy, even if the person wielding them isn't trying to harm anyone."

"Is that Jedi wisdom?" Ezra asked.

"Not that I've heard," Kanan answered.

"I might suggest that you make yourself comfortable. If I do this properly, it may take a while."


	2. Descent

**Descent**

Ahsoka was exhausted. The steps down the Jedi Temple had never seemed quite so long. They were long, of course; Ahsoka had been taught as a child that then entire structure was built over a mountain millennia ago. But she had scaled and descended the side of the Temple hundreds of times. The height was nothing new; knowing she might never return was.

Anakin's anguished face rose to the surface of Ahsoka's thoughts unbidden. She'd told him the truth: this wasn't about him. Throughout this entire ordeal, only her master had unwaveringly stood by her side. Former master. The thought came with a shot of pain somewhere behind her heart. Would he take another padawan? Envy welled within Ahsoka for a moment before logic quelled it. Anakin had always cared too much to be a model Jedi. He parroted the Order's position on attachment and emotion when he wanted to teach Ahsoka, but she saw how much he cared for his troops, watched him mourn Obi-Wan's false death. Ahsoka wasn't dying, but her betrayal would hurt him in ways she couldn't bear to contemplate. He would not replace her, and the council would not push him to do so. A teacher is judged by the merits of their students, and Ahsoka walking away from the order would do nothing to convince Master Windu or Master Mundi that Anakin's unorthodox methods were worth passing on.

The stairs leveled out into a large open space. The first time she'd practiced with her own lightsaber, it had been in this courtyard, under the watchful eyes of Master Yoda. He'd seemed so...perfect back then. A wise, thoughtful answer for even the most difficult questions. No secret could be kept from him, no degree of petulance or failure or stupidity could disturb his unflappable calm. And all that time, the seeds of war were being planted. He, and the rest of the council, had failed. They were supposed to be the keepers of the peace, and they had lost it.

Disappointment and resentment welled up within Ahsoka as she remembered her last two meetings with the Jedi Council. She didn't want to hurt Anakin, but returning to the Order, pretending their supposedly infallible leaders hadn't gone from giving her orders to standing by her execution to praising her as a Jedi worthy of knighthood over the course of a week…no.

Anakin had Obi-Wan, and Rex, and the rest of the 501st…and Padme. He would recover from the wound she was dealing him. With a great effort, Ahsoka pushed her master from her mind. There were more immediate problems.

For nearly fifteen years Ahsoka Tano had called this place home. She supposed she must have lived somewhere before Master Plo had taken her in, but she had no memory of parents or family of any kind, or even the name of the planet. Idle curiosity had long since taught her that the Togrutan homeworld was on Shili, but nearly as many of her species lived on the colony on Kiros, and again as many lived across the galaxy; her parents could be on Nar Shadaa, Naboo, Alderaan, here on Coruscant, or a hundred other planets friendly to outsiders. And even if by some miracle she happened across her family, how could she possibly recognize them? No, her family must remain a mystery.

And what of friends? Perhaps they could—

Barriss.

Ahsoka came to a complete stop in the middle of the courtyard. Her breath hitched, fingernails dug violently into arms as she tried to maintain control. Ahsoka had been a Jedi her entire life. She had practiced for years how to temper and ignore her emotions. She knew how to deal with anger, jealousy, envy, sorrow desire, joy, and mirth. Betrayal was a new challenge. With an effort, she shoved the thought of her former friend to the back of her mind to be dealt with later. She forced one foot in front of the other.

Ahsoka had helped many people in the past couple years. Many of them would be happy to give Ahsoka a home, at least temporarily. Her first thought was of Padme, but she quickly discarded the option. Padme was a good friend and perhaps the best the Senate had to offer, but she and Anakin were close. Very close.

Lux Bonteri…that situation is just a well of even more confusion. Pleasant confusion, sure. But she had too much to sort out in her life as it was. Pass.

Ahsoka and Chewbacca had once saved each other on the Trandoshan moon. Wookies held those who took the time to learn Shyriiwook in high regard; they'd take her in if she could get to Kashyyk. Then again, Kashyyyk was a war zone and half a galaxy away. Ahsoka wondered if she had the credits to get off planet. She'd never been very good with money; the Jedi Order was well-funded and all her basic necessities had always been provided for her. Without their support, Ahsoka didn't know where the next meal might come from, and she imagined interplanetary travel must be expensive.

So leaving Coruscant was out. Who else did she know here?

Riyo.

More steps. Ahsoka continued her descent.

Riyo Chuchi was the senator to Pantora, a good friend, and still owed Ahsoka for the incident with her family and the Trade Federation. And the fact that Riyu was such a well-connected individual would ensure that Ahsoka would be able to keep an eye and an ear on galactic politics. So if something important happened—

Ahsoka stopped. What if something important happened?

She sat down.

Would she step back into the fight? Could she? Could she stay away? If she did get back in the fight, what would the order do? Would they trust her to do the right thing, or hunt her down like a fallen Jedi? Was she a fallen Jedi?

Ahsoka reached up to hold her montrals, trying to quiet the thoughts in her mind. She stood up. For now, the next step would be enough. She needed time to think. Alone. And she needed shelter and food. A simple job could supply her with that much.

Ahsoka stood. She'd visit her room; she had a few credits there, probably enough for the next few meals. She didn't have much else. A few changes of clothes, better for sale than for fashion. Some writing supplies she'd never touched; the Jedi code encouraged a sort of scholarliness that had never interested Ahsoka even before wartime. And…her lightsaber. The clones had recovered the shoto she'd lost running from them, and the council had restored it to her when she'd been found innocent. Ahsoka had stopped carrying it, but she wouldn't leave it behind either. That was simple practicality; she'd made as many enemies in the galaxy as friends, perhaps more. Reclaiming her green saber should be a priority as well. Revisiting level 1315 was repugnant, but letting a lightsaber loose in Coruscant's underground was asking for trouble.

An hour later, Ahsoka Tano finished her descent from the Jedi Temple.


	3. Waiting

**Waiting**

A waitress.

Asajj Ventress could scarcely believe it. More than ten years of Jedi training, three years of being mentored by Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and enough skill to survive crossing blades with General Grievous, and Ahsoka Tano spends her time waiting tables while war ravages the galaxy.

All the better really. Convincing the girl to part from her lightsabers would be difficult enough just because of their bad blood. If she was still using the things, this trip to the surface would be a complete waste.

The plan was still a terrible one, Ventress had no illusions about that. But she hadn't come up with anything better, and waiting would not help. Time to act.

Asajj paused before entering the diner. A cold breath on the nape of her bare skull told her she was being watched. A small spike of anger came and went as she was reminded of the loss of her helmet, though its use would be limited in such a respectable part of Coruscant. A quick peek through the window revealed the besalisk owner behind the bar, a spotless droid bussing tables, and her Togrutan target waiting on a young family.

The family's presence was good, Asajj could use innocents.

Asajj cast that thought from her mind. This is no time to use violence. Even if it got her what she wanted, it would bring the Jedi down upon her. Focus.

Whoever had been watching had lost interest. There's always someone watching on Coruscant. Asajj couldn't wait to get off this planet. The crowds made her paranoid.

A false, tinny bell tone played as Asajj slipped inside.

"I'll be with you in a moment," Tano called distractedly, "Find a seat anyw—Ventress?" Tano's hands twitched towards her waist, desperate to hold the weapons that her hip-hugging apron obviously wasn't hiding.

Asajj tried for reassuring. "Relax, girl, I'm just here on business."

Tano wasn't reassured, "So there is a bounty out for me. Who set it? The Separatists? The Hutts? The Jedi?"

"Coffee."

Asajj was immensely satisfied by the look of confusion that stole across Tano's face.

"Wha—?"

"It's far too early for me to deal with paranoid Jedi," Asajj slid into a window booth seat. "So I need a drink. You do serve that here, don't you?"

"It's almost midnight."

"Sober small talk isn't my forte."

Tano took a moment to gift Asajj with an almost impressive look of disdain before stalking off.

Asajj let her usual scowl slip into place. Apparently saving the girl's life wasn't enough to earn her trust. Or maybe Skywalker never passed that bit of news along.

As she returned, Asajj couldn't help but half wonder if Tano meant to scald her with the fresh pot of coffee. Instead, the ex-Jedi sat down across from her.

"The service here isn't as pleasant as I had hoped," Ventress began, sipping her coffee. "I'd thought you accepted that I've turned over a new leaf, seeing how you made sure I was pardoned. I admit, I half expected you to renege on your end of our last bargain."

"Master Skywalker brought your pardon to the Senate, not me. Why are you here, Ventress?"

"Fine, no small talk, business. It's difficult to hunt bounties without weapons. The Mirialan stole mine. The Jedi refuse to return them, even if I have been pardoned. So I'm here to buy yours."

"You think I'm going to let you take my lightsabers without a fight?" Tano said.

"Not take," Ventress said, reaching into her pocket for a flask. She poured a significant dose of alcohol into her half-finished coffee. "Sell. Bounty hunting is profitable business. I have credits."

"If you think you can give me enough credits to let you go back to being a war criminal—"

"I'm not going back to the war. And while we're on the subject, let's clear this up: I've done things I'm not proud of, but not during the war," Asajj snarled. "I've been an absolute bitch if I thought it would get the job done, but I was a war hero! I just wasn't on your side. I killed hundreds of clone troopers, you trashed thousands of droids. Do you really see a difference?"

"I've had friends that were clones," Tano said coldly, "Did you have friends have friends who were droids?"

"Yes."

That shut Tano up. Ventress saw an opening and went for it.

"MM-50 is a standard B-1. An idiot. Couldn't hit a planet he's standing on without shooting himself in the foot. And somehow he always survived. Not in one piece mind, every limb on that little idiot was built in a different factory. But he was my moron. Last I heard he was stationed in the Besh Gorgon system. I hope he finds a way out of the war…"

Asajj realized where she was and who she was with. "Droids and clones and everyone else are created without anything special about them. Time gives them glitches, quirks, experience. Given the chance they might do something interesting with themselves, stick out from the crowd. Most don't."

Both young women were looking rather pointedly at their hands. The besalisk coughed.

"What do you need me for? Why not build your own lightsaber?" Tano finally said.

"Never learned how. Wasn't a Coruscant Padawan like you. Ky Narec was stranded on Rattatak for years before he found and trained me. My first lightsaber was a hand-me-down from his dead padawan. My second was his. Dooku replaced those with a pair once wielded by the dark Jedi Komari Vosa. Never built one for myself."

Silence reigned once more. The besalisk got to his feet with a grunt and approached the hungry family.

"Why bounty hunting?" Tano eventually asked. You were with the Separatist higher ups, if you want money you must know what member of the Trade Federation to blackmail, or which Banking Clan outpost you could rob without anyone noticing. Or you could probably sell intel to the Republic, you could do more damage to the Separatist movement with your words than an entire legion of troopers. Why put your life on the line?"

Asajj shrugged. "I fell into it. Haven't gotten back up yet. Maybe I enjoy fighting. Maybe I want to die. But I like not choosing the targets. After Dooku betrayed me I tried making choices, leading, making a difference. It didn't go well. I take money from scum and hurt other scum. People don't get bounties put on them for building porg sanctuaries."

"It was a bounty hunter trying to kill Senator Amidala that started the war to begin with!"

"And you think she's done nothing that deserves death?" Asajj asked.

"She was trying to stop a war!" Tano exploded.

"Trying to stop a vote, I think. The same vote that created your clone army. The Jedi would have all died on Geonosis and Dooku would rule the galaxy unopposed if she'd gotten her way."

"First, that vote was stopped, the clone army was created a decade ago by a Jedi with more foresight than anyone gave him credit for. And second," Tano said, ticking off her middle finger," we're judging people by the results of their actions instead of their intentions now?"

"Of course we are," Asajj said coldly. "We give medals and promotions to the soldiers who succeed, not the idiots who walk into traps. If a rogue rescues a princess just to get a reward, I think you'll find the princess is still saved."

"So the rogue is a hero until he goes back to selling spice, is that it?"

Asajj rolled her eyes, "You've seen more than most kids, but here's something you haven't learned yet. There are no rogues. No heroes. No idiots. No soldiers. There are only people. People take actions. Actions are roguish, or heroic, or idiotic, or dutiful. The rogue can be as selfish as he likes, but if he keeps doing heroic things, people will call him a hero. People can change, do change. All the time. Actions don't. Once they're done, actions just are what they are.

"But you don't want to listen to me. And I don't like talking philosophy. It's clear I'm wasting my time here." Asajj made to get up.

Tano touched her arm, "You're not." Her face was inscrutable.

Asajj's patience wore thin, "If you mean to say you're selling your lightsabers, name your price."

"Lightsaber," Tano corrected. "And I'll need more than credits."

"You've seen me fight," Asajj said, "I need two blades."

"You've used two blades, with duelist hilts and of equal lengths," Tano corrected once again. "Both mine are of unequal length and have traditional hilts. You were never going to get exactly what you want from me. You're just going to have to compromise more. Besides, even with only one blade, I'm sure you're a match for most bounties if it comes to a fight. Surely the tricky part is finding them."

"True. Fine, one blade. What's your price?" Asajj asked.

"Pretty cheap. Enough to pay the rest of the rent on my flat, and a bed on your starship. Wherever you're hunting bounties next, I'm going with you."

Asajj laughed out loud, then cut herself short when she saw Tano's impassive expression. "You're serious? You want to travel with me?"

"Side effect of being partners." Tano said evenly.

"Partners?" Asajj said incredulously.

"You know I can hold my own in any fight," Tano said. "And I've spent my fair share of time hunting down scum. And goodness knows there's a lot of petty crime the Jedi would be dealing with if there wasn't a war going on. You could do a lot of good for a lot of people, as long as you keep pointed in the right direction. So that'll be my job."

"So I'm supposed to just let you into my life, let you judge all my actions, give me permission on what bounties I can and can't hunt? And all I get in return is a lightsaber and a sidekick?"

"Partner."

"Headache." Asajj downed the rest of her spiked coffee. "What's to stop me from gutting you and tossing your corpse to the stars the minute we break the atmosphere?"

"Me," Tano said. "And my other lightsaber."

"You seriously think you're a match for me?" Asajj said.

"Maybe. Maybe not." Ahsoka shrugged, "I suppose we're bound to find out one way or another."

Asajj glared at Tano.

To her credit, the Togruta didn't back down.

"I want 80% of the profits. It's my ship."

"Done." Ahsoka said, "We don't kill if we can avoid it."

"Done. Most bounties pay more if they're alive anyways. We stay well away from the war. Dooku wants my head more than Kenobi's."

"Done. Interfering could cause problems with the Jedi that I don't really want anyways. You don't get to turn my lightsaber red?"

"What?"

"I'm serious. It stays yellow or there's no deal."

"Sure, not a problem, but you can do that? Change a saber's color?"

"The Sith can. That's why all their sabers are red. Their crystals are stolen from Jedi lightsabers and corrupted. You didn't know that?"

"Dooku taught me how to murder things. Crystal painting didn't come up. You need to spend more time haggling and less time reading."

Tano smiled, "Funny, Barriss always used to say…" Her smile faded with her words, her sentence unfinished.

Ventress reached across the table and flicked her forehead, "Last demand. None of this. No whining about how you were betrayed, no complaining about how the Jedi abandoned you. Everyone has a sob story. I can keep fire from burning me, but I have no interest in trying to put fire to a wet log."

Tano nodded, but her eyes were still far away. "This is actually happening, isn't it?"

"If you aren't backing out, then I suppose it is. How much time do you need before the hunt begins?"

"We should be off world by morning."

"Off world? I have a target her that I was hunting before you barged in that is still ripe for the picking."

"Whoever it is, forget them. The Jedi won't like me being with you, and gossip tends to travel quickly near the surface." Tano cast a significant glance at the besalisk.

Asajj frowned, remembering the eyes before she entered the diner, "I'm taking that reward out of your pay. And I'm taking the green saber, not the yellow one. The Banshee is docked in bay 2187 on level 1313. Be there in two hours."

"My flat is two levels down. Give me the rent and I'll strip it and be back in five minutes. Then we can go together. The green was my first. I'm keeping it."

"I'm taller, I need a longer blade. The green is mine." Asajj retrieved the money and watched the girl go.

This was not how the evening was supposed to turn out. She'd have to adjust her style if she was going to use a single saber again. She wasn't so concerned with Tano accompanying her. The girl had seen her share of action, wasn't entirely useless in a fight, but she was spoiled. She'd never been without a home, without a temple to return to when the mission was done. She'd scamper back to civilized society within the month.

And she was getting at least one saber out of the deal. And she could take the second saber when the girl ran. Payment for leaving her "partner" high and dry. Something like that. The girl was useless at negotiation. Ought to have spent a bit more time listening to Kenobi talk instead of watching Skywalker smash.

Tano returned, and they left the diner together.


	4. Level 1313

**Level 1313**

The trip down to level 1313 was a silent one. Ahsoka supposed that made sense; Ventress had never struck her as the chatty type. And goodness knew they had enough to think about.

What in the galaxy had possessed her, throwing her lot in with Ventress. Ahsoka was supposed to be spending her time away from the order meditating, figuring out her place in the force and stuff (not that she'd made much progress on that front). Not running of on some ridiculously reckless quest to…what exactly? Make sure some criminals were arrested? She didn't need Ventress for that. It wasn't for the money either; if she wanted cash, she'd have taken the fortune that reporter had offered. So that left just two reasons Ahsoka could think of, one impossible, the other unthinkable: either she legitimately believed that she could guide Ventress to a benevolent path through life, or—"

"Wait," Ventress said, grabbing Ahsoka's hand.

Ahsoka immediately jerked her hand free. "What is it?"

Ventress smirked, "Sorry, I forgot how touchy Jedi can be about touching. We just passed my hangar."

"What?" Ahsoka whipped around, "How did you miss that? Also, I'm not a Jedi, and I'm not 'touchy.'"

Ventress pulled her flask out. Ahsoka still wasn't sure where she kept it, seeing how Ventress's entire wardrobe seemed to be skin-tight. "This swill is supposed to be for Wookies. Be impressed I can stand." Ventress staggered theatrically for a few steps before resuming her usual predatory prowl. She punched a long sequence of symbols on a nearby console. The rusty door labeled 2187 began creaking upwards. "And don't fool yourself, girl. You left the temple, but you're still as arrogant and close-minded as—damn."

The door's mechanism had ground to a halt at knee height.

Ventress bent to lift the door manually. "A little help, Jedi?" she grunted.

"You just don't get the Jedi way, do you?" Ahsoka scuttled beneath the door on all fours. "Attitude doesn't matter. Attachments define self. The Jedi deny the self to serve the light."

"Your wisdom is idiotic and unearned," Ventress growled.

Ahsoka ignored her, closed her eyes, and reached out. She felt around in the door's mechanisms, found the obstruction stuck amongst the gears and removed it. When the door didn't resume its work, she just pushed it up.

Ventress scarcely kept her balance as the door was pulled out of her grasp.

"And despite my idiocy, I still remember that I can use the force. Crazy how that works." Ahsoka mocked.

"Funny," Ventress said in a tone that suggested she'd never experienced mirth, "You have Anakin's subtlety."

Ahsoka took a proper look around. The hangar Ventress was using was neither large nor pleasant. A foul odor suggested it was either owned by Hutts or the last ship to pass through was carrying nerfs. The docking bay door on the far side was wide open, presumably as broken as the one they'd just passed through. Between the two new partners and the open Coruscant air stood a ship.

"What a piece of…okay, I'm not going to lie, that's a cool ship. How'd you get ahold of a Lancer?" Ahsoka asked.

"A what?"

Ahsoka pointed, "That ship is a Lancer-class pursuit claft, right? Built by MandalMotors, seriously blurs the line between freighter and fighter, fast, tough, surprisingly maneuverable, minimal repetitive maintenance and…is that a ventral tri-turret? That isn't standard for Lancers. I suppose that's to compensate for the ship's natural susceptibility to multi-vector assaults?"

"…sure. For exactly that."

"…you stole it."

"Of course I did. But before you're allowed on board, we have business to conduct." Ventress held out her hand expectantly. "Time to pay up."

Right. The lightsaber.

Reluctantly, Ahsoka reached into her pack and fingered the two metal cylinders within. Two. Saber and Shoto. Backgrip and foregrip. Parry and strike. Her fighting style was unique among all the active Jedi in the order. A whirlwind of balance. That night with Barriss was enough to remind her how much she'd come to rely on the shoto's presence. How could she hope to defend herself from any meaningful bounty—nevermind a really terrifying threat like Grievous or Maul…or Ventress—with only a single blade?

Ventress.

"I've only ever seen you wield two blades," Ahsoka said, fiddling with the knobs on her weapons. "Have you ever trained to use just one?"

Ventress frowned, "What do you care?"

"Humor me."

Ventress groaned, "I told you yesterday, I've used two sabers since Narec's death. Before that, he trained me to use just one. Dooku gave me formal training with two. Can we get on with it?"

Ahsoka tossed her the shoto and ignited her green saber. "The dial at the top adjusts the blade's length. Twist the pommel to control power output." She demonstrated by shortening her blade and dimming it, "This is as low as it goes. About as long as the shoto, and not intense enough to even burn through flesh. Now, fight me."

Ventress regarding Ahsoka suspiciously, "What are you playing at girl?"

"Just getting the inevitable out of the way," Ahsoka said evasively. "We don't like each other. So if we're going to kill each other, I'd prefer to do it before spending hours together, wouldn't you?"

A wolfish grin spread over Ventress's face, "Finally, you say something that makes actual sense."

Ahsoka settled into her old reverse grip stance. As Ventress fiddled with the settings on the shoto and gave it a few experimental swings and stabs, Ahsoka quickly reflected on what Anakin had taught her of the various lightsaber forms. Each form was more of a philosophy than a catalogue of movements. If Ventress had been telling the truth (and Ahsoka kept loose in case she wasn't) she would probably be using lightsaber combat form 2, Makashi. Form 1 is mostly for elementary training, not great for saber to saber combat. Form 2 struggled against multiple opponents and blaster fire, but in single combat it would be difficult for Ahsoka to counter.

Ventress activated her blade and held it one-handed before her. Tense. Waiting.

"Precision and restraint," Ahsoka could almost hear Anakin's training, "that's what form 2 is all about. It's Count Dooku's style. It doesn't block, it parries. It doesn't swing, it stabs. Small, calculated movements. No channeling the force for strength like me, or for agility like Master Yoda. Well, probably a little, he is an old man. But his focus is always on the next five seconds, and how he can gain the most ground with the least effort. That philosophy made his family the richest in the galaxy, and it let him pierce Master Obi-Wan's defenses with scarcely any effort. Playing defensively against form 2 is a losing battle, because they'll outlast you every time and will find the hole in your defenses. But an all-out offensive assault is just as pointless, as I discovered: their foresight will never let an obvious attack through. But I think I've found a strategy that might work.

Ventress advanced like a fencer, sideways to extend her reach and keep her profile small.

Ahsoka pushed away Ventress's first thrust and backpedaled to get out of range of the second. The yellow saber hummed past her face time and time again, and Ventress only seemed to be getting stronger.

Ahsoka parried yet again and tried to step back, but felt the wall behind her. A sudden kick from Ventress caught her hard in the side. No more retreat available. Time to see if Anakin was right. Ahsoka flipped the saber in her hand grasped the hilt with both hands. Pulling strength from the force, Ahsoka struck Ventress's saber properly. Not a parry this time, but an attempt to disarm.

Ventress held on. But the sudden burst of strength did throw the bald woman off balance.

Ahsoka advanced.

Ventress retreated haphazardly, her blocks effective, but weak. Almost standing below her own ship, she managed to catch Ahsoka's blade in a lock and got her feet back underneath her.

Ahsoka refused to cede the momentum. She leapt and planted a two footed kick into Ventress's chest.

Ventress stumbled back and bashed her skull against the underside of her ship. Dazed, she managed to get her blade up in time for Ahsoka's next swing to knock her to the floor. The strike that followed stripped the saber from her grasp.

With a furious scream, Ventress grasped hold of the Force and pushed.

With the lightsaber gone, Ahsoka had expected the telekinetic attack, and braced herself for it. It meant nothing. Ahsoka was launched twenty feet backwards into the wall. The breath rushed out of her lungs and the strength from her arms. The lightsaber fell from her grip.

Ahsoka sat up and reached for her saber. It wasn't there. She caught a glimpse of the metal rod flying towards Ventress's outstretched hand. Ahsoka gritted her teeth and pulled the shoto to herself. Both of them were breathing heavily. Neither rose from their prone positions.

"If I…" Ventress gasped, "Had both…of my sabers…"

Ahsoka half laughed, "Oh, it hurts to laugh. And I…ow…I didn't have both of mine either."

"And why did you have to make your saber straight?" Ventress grumbled, looking at the underside of her ship, "curved hilts are so much better. And when did you start working out?"

"Are you kidding? I'm way out of shape, I've been waiting tables."

"Poodoo," Ventress spat.

"Call it a draw?" Ahsoka asked, forcing herself to sit up.

"Sure," Ventress said, almost amiably. She raised the hand holding Ahsoka's lightsaber, "I got what I wanted."

"And I found what I want," Ahsoka said, serious once again. "I want you to teach me."

Ventress sat up, but said nothing.

"Cards on the table," Ahsoka said, "I'm questioning everything right now. Who I am, who I want to be, what the force wants from me, and how much I care what it wants. Everything is sideways. And I don't think I want to be you, but I feel like I need to understand the dark side, at least a little, if I'm going to figure out if I want to serve the light."

Ventress continued to stare her down.

"…Well? Say something!" Ahsoka almost begged.

Ventress collapsed backwards, staring at the underside of her ship once again, "Ugh, fine. But you're teaching me too."

"Me? Teach you? What could I possibly—? "

"And I thought you were intolerable when you were arrogant. Spare me the modesty, I don't even care if it's genuine or not," Ventress said. Her words were venomous as ever, but her tone lacked its usual cold bite. "Cards on the table huh? Why not? I've spent the past…a long time, just…just always angry and lately I've had a nice layer of grief on top of that. At the Jedi, at the droids, at Dooku, at Grievous, at myself. You have any idea how long it's been since I was happy and sober at the same time? The Jedi still piss me off, but what I wouldn't give to just shut off my emotions for a while. Well…I guess I'd give away the second cabin."

She struggled to her feet and a moment later the ship's loading ramp descended. "Room on the right is yours. Get some rest, Tano. I'll get us into orbit."

Ahsoka pulled herself to her feet and followed her aboard.


	5. Target

**Target**

"Ugh, this is taking forever," Tano whined. "Can't you just choose one so we can get going?"

"Hunting bounties isn't like fighting wars, girl. Get in a fight you can't win, or run out of funds on the wrong planet, that'll end our partnership real quick," Asajj said disinterestedly, looking through screen after screen of information on active bounties in the galaxy. She returned to a previous bounty, cross-referencing some details.

"It can't possibly be that difficult to find an expensive bounty," Tano said, looking over Asajj's shoulder at the ship's computer. "What's wrong with this one?"

"Do you want to be _The Banshee's_ captain?" Asajj said, annoyed at the proximity.

"Well, I kind of did until you called it _The Banshee_. Please tell me that wasn't your idea."

"When I stole it, it was _The Year of the Ostrich_. And you're here for your lightsaber, not your creative input."

Tano had the decency to seem abashed, "Sorry, it doesn't matter. I'm just trying to be helpful, you look miserable doing this."

"I'm always miserable."

That one Tano ignored, "I can be useful outside a fight. I'm a quick study. So, start teaching. This one looks like a great target. Rescue the nephew of the YT-series head designer, double reward if we bring in the kidnapper? Saving a kid and taking down a creep? We wouldn't even be breaking any laws. So what's the problem with it, why aren't we already in hyperspace to Corellia?"

Asajj sighed. Teaching would be easier than convincing the girl to mind her business. Especially since she technically was minding her business now. "Two reasons. One, we're light on fuel and funds. Turns out fortunes are lost as quickly as they're earned in this business. The Banshee has one more jump in her, so wherever we go, we need to be able to finish a contract there, and we've got no reason to think his nephew is still on planet. And that's number two as well; we don't know where to find this nephew or if the kid is still alive. Too much could go wrong."

"If you're thinking all that, then why are you still looking at this bounty?" Tano asked, puzzled.

"Two more reasons," Asajj said, raising her index and middle finger in Tano's face. "One, I'm tired, didn't get your nap after our spar. When I'm tired, I think more slowly and triple check everything. And two," she lowered her index finger, "this isn't the first job I've seen on Corellia. There's a standing warrant on anyone poaching Corellian sand panthers, apparently that's been a problem. Which makes me wonder…" Asajj made a request of her computer and received the reply she expected. "Naturally, plenty of buyers willing to pay handsomely for panther pelts. New fashion on Nar Shaddaa. Easy money, both."

"We are not poaching panthers," Tano said emphatically, batting Asajj's hand away.

"Of course not," Asajj confirmed. "We steal pelts from poachers, turn the poachers in, then sell the pelts. Never make a profit when you can make two. There, that's lesson number one."

"So you'll help arrest poachers for breaking the law, then go and break it yourself, is that it?" Ahsoka demanded. "No, this isn't a job we're taking. I'm enacting the 'forbid morally reprehensible jobs' clause of our contract."

Asajj finally turned away from the _Banshee_ 's computer to look at Tano. If the Togruta had ever feared the nightsister, those days had clearly passed. "Care for some sausage?"

"What." Ahsoka said flatly.

"Sausage. Made some while you were asleep." Asajj retrieved the tin of leftover sausages and offered them to Tano. "No idea what they're actually made of, and I burnt them on one side. Won't say it tastes good, but it's filling enough."

"You can't distract me that easily, Ventress," Tano said. She looked insulted that Asajj would try to manipulate her with such an obvious and juvenile tactic.

"I'm not distracting you, I'm giving you a meal. You haven't eaten since before your shift at the diner. Sit." Asajj motioned to the copilot's seat. "Eat. And talk to me."

Tano didn't talk, nor sit, nor did she take the tin of sausages. She just stood and stared suspiciously.

Asajj sighed, "Fine then, I'll talk. I'm not evil. Or at least, I'm not trying to be evil. Maybe I am from your point of view. Maybe I just am, but I'm too screwed up to know it. But if I'm going to change, you'll have to do better than 'No Ventress! Bad girl!' There's a whole lot of things different between you and me, Tano, and across many of them you might prove to be the 'better' person. But I think I have you on one point: I'm not sure that I'm right about everything."

Tano's face tightened. She exhaled violently through her nose, and balled her fists. For a moment Asajj was certain that the girl was going to strike her. The physical signs of the girl's anger passed, but Asajj could still tell that she was seething.

When even her fury proved incapable of loosening her lips, Asajj pressed on, "I've upset you. That's not what I was going for. I'm not great at friendly conversation, or whatever it is partners are supposed to do when talking business ethics. Next time, just hit me; it will make you feel better, and you know that I deserve much worse."

"That isn't the Je—" Tano started quietly, but quickly cut herself off. She turned away, looking at the deep space out the cockpit window, "Taking pleasure in the pain of others is sadism of the worst sort. Hurting other people should always be a last resort, and then only to be considered if the pain inflicted is less than the pain prevented in those you're protecting. There's my lesson one."

Asajj took a moment to consider her statement. "I'm not sure your lesson forbids sadism."

Tano's head snapped back to look down at her, annoyance breaking through the Jedi mask. The girl really was quite terrible at hiding her emotions. "How do you figure that?"

"Well, I'd assume that protecting yourself by inflicting a lesser amount of pain is allowed by this lesson. Someone comes shooting a blaster at me, I'm free to return fire as long as my blaster is set to stun, right?"

Ahsoka nodded cautiously.

"And one other point of clarification: pain and pleasure are two sides of the same coin. No, that's not right," Asajj shook her head. "They are opposite ends of the same scale. The one is the inverse of the other."

"Well, yeah," Ahsoka said impatiently.

"Then your rule of 'only use violence if the result is less total pain than if you hadn't acted' is precisely the same as the rule 'only use violence if the result is more total pleasure than if you hadn't acted.' Or would you say that I shouldn't pinch your cheek even if doing so somehow brings lasting peace and prosperity to an entire system?"

Tano's frown deepened, but she didn't respond.

"Well then, if it's fine to use hurt someone for another person's pleasure so long as the pleasure is more intense than the pain, and I value my well-being as being equal to that of anyone else in the galaxy, than sadism is perfectly justified, so long as the pain is less than the pleasure. And at that point it's just a matter of weighing degrees of pain and pleasure."

Ahsoka let out a cry of frustration and threw herself into the copilot's seat, "How can you get this all so wrong? You're taking my words and twisting them, warping them until they mean something else entirely! Okay, you're good at arguing, but that doesn't make you right."

"I'm not saying that I'm right," Asajj said. "But I've spent far too long accepting other people's truth. Narec. Dooku. Talzin. All convinced they knew what was best for me and the galaxy, and I just accepted all of it without question, and all it's gotten me is... I'm done with that. You want to change how I think, that's fine, but I'll be questioning you every step of the way." Asajj realized she was ranting and shut her mouth. "…Anyways, if you still think I'm wrong, take your time to figure out why. I'm more concerned with being right than with being right right now."

Ahsoka reached into the tin and grabbed a sausage, looking thoughtful. She recoiled at the taste. "You really are an awful cook."

"You want to make the next meal, feel free." Asajj said, sliding back into her comfortable sneering tone of voice.

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, both half-pretending to be interested in the view of Coruscant as they orbited above it.

"You eat meat." Asajj eventually pointed out.

"Really?" Tano said, finishing off her third charred sausage.

"I mean you eat animals. I'm trying to figure out your objection to my poaching plan. You don't mind animals being killed for food, but you don't like people wearing them, is that it?"

"Leather," Tano said, knocking her knuckles on her boots. "Try again."

Asajj felt a spike of annoyance, "I'm not much for games."

"Try sometime. Fun is remarkably fun." Tano took her time finishing the last sausage before giving a proper answer. "Two reasons: it's against the law and—"

"Against the…are you planning to be a law-abiding bounty hunter?" Asajj asked, stupefied. Do you have any idea how many regulations this ship breaks just by existing? How many systems forbid the possession of lightsabers to all non-Jedi? I'm widely known as a war criminal and you're a runaway Jedi; our very existence breaks half a dozen galactic laws."

"Which means we should try to do our work without calling attention to ourselves," Tano answered evenly. "And I have a second reason: if their hunting is illegal, it's probably because Corellian sand panthers are endangered. Call me selfish, but they're beautiful creatures, and I don't want to see them go extinct, never mind have a hand in their disappearance."

Asajj smirked. "Now those are reasonable objections. But, I have solutions to them." She reached out with the force and pulled her masked helmet to her hand, "Anonymity is easy if you bother to try. We can get something for you once we get a bounty. Might have to get a special order to accommodate…" she gestured above her head in a crude representation of Tano's montrals. "And I have two points on the extinction of sand panthers. They aren't endangered. The law is to protect the hunters, not the animals; they're dangerous creatures. And like I already said, we won't be killing any of them, just selling the pelts of those the hunters have already killed."

Tano certainly wasn't smiling, but her frown had at least become less pronounced, "And you don't think that participating in the poaching system will help it thrive?"

"Have you ever been to Nar Shaddaa?" Asajj asked. "Fashion changes quickly, and the more popular it is, the more quickly it goes out of style. If you want them to stop sending poachers to kill your pretty panthers, make sure everyone is wearing one of their pelts."

Tano looked contemplative for a few moments, than began making adjustments to the navi-computer.

"What are you doing?" Asajj asked.

"If we're going to be paid for those pelts, we'd best find those poachers before panthers go out of style." Ahsoka turned to Asajj, "To Corellia?"


	6. Hunt

**Hunt**

They'd been on Corellia for just three days. Finding the poachers was as easy as tracking a leaky ion engine in a desert. Precisely that easy, actually. They were well-armed and reckless. Three easy mind tricks on the midnight watchmen and the entire company was taken without a blaster drawn.

Within the following day, bounties were paid for both poachers and pelts, and the Banshee had enough fuel to make a round trip to Tattooine.

They didn't take time to celebrate (beyond buying a delicious breakfast) as there was still the matter of the engineer's nephew. Ventress arranged a meeting with the engineer, and tried wheedling more information from their potential patron. Twelve-year-old kid left his parent's house, alone, to visit a friend across town. No confirmed sighting of the kid since.

Ahsoka did some quick research and communicated a meeting place to Ventress. They met on the sidewalk of an almost empty side-street off of one of Coronet's largest shopping districts, ankles slowly being drenched by the soot-stained snow that covered every surface.

"Are you sure this is where we'll find the brat?" Ventress asked, suppressing a shiver.

Ahsoka launched into her theory without preamble, "Ian has been missing for more than two weeks, so no body means he didn't just get lost. Local security would have found him if he was with any family or friends. Missing person cases like this usually have three solutions: murder, slavery, or pervert. We obviously want Ian alive so I discounted the possibility—"

"Skip the part where you're clever," Ventress said, raising a hand, "What are we doing here?"

Ahsoka shot Ventress an annoyed look, but complied, "There are reports that nearly a dozen children have disappeared in the past six months who generally fit Ian's profile. Ian just happens to be the first from a wealthy enough family for the local security to put in more than a token effort. Five of those twelve worked on this block. It's the best lead I could find."

"Let's hope it's good enough." Ventress closed her eyes and dropped into what might have been a fighting stance, knees bent, arms raised, palms held outwards. Her jaw was set in concentration.

"Um, what are you doing?" Ahsoka asked.

"Looking for our target," Ventress said tersely.

"Okay," Ahsoka said. She waited a moment for Ventress to actually start investigating the surrounding area. "Traditionally, one looks by looking. Opening your eyes is a good start. Leaving the alleyway would—"

"Quit screwing around," Ventress said, eyes snapping open. "I can't concentrate with you—" The look in Ventress's face changed suddenly from irritation to disbelief. "You don't know—how are you still alive?"

Ahsoka had no idea what was going on. "The same way I always have? Eat, breathe, sleep, don't get killed."

Ventress sighed, "Alright, second lesson. Close your eyes."

Ahsoka reined in her suspicions, but was still cautious enough to quickly feel Ventress's emotions. Finding no more than the usual hostility, she acquiesced.

"Now look around you. Can you see me?"

"No." Ahsoka said. She dodged the backhand Ventress aimed at her face.

"But you saw that, didn't you?"

Ahsoka opened her eyes, "Dodging attacks you can't see is child's play for a Jedi. Literally. It's a game master Yoda teaches all the younglings early on."

"Fascinating. Close your eyes. So you have the ability to sense the world around you without using your senses. The Force is a shy gossip, desperate for a conversation. It speaks loudest of danger. But if you listen closer you can learn all sorts of things. Where living things are without seeing them, find the layout of rooms before entering them. You know I'm here in front of you. What else can you see?"

Ahsoka decided against making any comment on whether she should be looking or listening and concentrated. "Shoppers on the street. Employees in the stores. Traffic overhead. Rodents in the rafters and beneath the floorboards. Homes above the stores. Families."

"Good," Ventress said. "Choose one. Focus upon it. See what they are doing. See their goal. See what they will do next. And after that."

Ahsoka focused upon a besalisk woman in the next building, examining a display of holo-videos. The woman was frustrated, wasn't finding what she wanted. Ahsoka watched her give up and leave the store, walk past the alley where the two bounty hunters still stood, watched her climb into a nearby speeder and leave her day of shopping behind.

Except…she hadn't done any of that yet. She was still staring at the display. But even as Ahsoka watched, the woman left the store without making a purchase and passed the end of their alley. Ahsoka opened her eyes and they confirmed the view she had already felt. The woman walked out of sight, but a moment later her speeder passed by in the opposite direction, as Ahsoka had imagined it would.

How the Force had told her it would.

"You see?" Ventress asked.

"I saw." Ahsoka said, still only half believing. "You know how to see the future?"

"And now you do as well," Ventress said. "But don't rely upon it too much. Your own actions can alter the futures you see, as can the decisions of others. Anyone changes their mind or alters their plans and things won't play out the way they should. Try to look too far ahead and your results will be worse than useless. But the large majority of the universe doesn't changed its course moment by moment. Droids and beasts are particularly predictable. One last exercise though. Pick a building nearby to investigate aggressively. Then watch yourself, and see the results."

Ahsoka picked the shop across the street. A family disturbed. Merchandise destroyed. Security called.

Ahsoka changed her course, barging into a different shop. A trigger-happy customer. A dead clerk. No children.

Children.

Ahsoka broadened her focus, searching for young minds. A trio of siblings. A classroom of adolescents. And…there. A dozen tired minds in the cramped hold of a freighter parked nearby. Sleeping. One adult, also asleep. No, not asleep. Unconscious. A pair of empty bottles decorated the ships deck near where the man laid.

Ahsoka saw herself and Ventress cutting through the ship's meager hull, finding the children relatively healthy, their captor in no condition to put up any defense.

"I know where to go," Ahsoka said.

And she did.

Ventress followed.

When they carved a hold into the ship's side, they found the children where Ahsoka expected them in the ship's hold. She hadn't foreseen the blaster until it was nearly too late.

Ahsoka's lightsaber wasn't finished extending when her swing deflected the blaster bolt into the ground.

Ventress stretched out her hand and the warm blaster leapt towards her.

The young boy that had been holding the blaster clasped both hands together as if he had been burnt.

She caught it with practiced grace and pointed it towards the cluster of cowering children.

"Ventress, no!" Ahsoka said, pushing her partner's blaster-hand away from the ship. "We don't threaten children, and we aren't just leaving the rest here."

"One of them just tried to kill you. I say let the scum do what he wants with that one at least."

"Mr. Garris doesn't do anything to us," one of the braver children piped up.

"And I suppose you gave yourself that black eye," Ventress drawled.

"That was my fault," the child said, "I didn't bring him enough—"

"What's going on down here?" the blaster had awakened "Mr. Garris." The human was as fat as the children were malnourished. His black hair looked oily enough to call the invention of soap into question.

Ventress's hand snapped back up, blaster trained on Garris's nose. "I'm thinking he deserves to die."

Her words were loud enough for all to hear, but Ahsoka knew they were meant for her. They were a question. Ventress was asking permission.

"Maybe." Ahsoka said, "But not in front of the children." She raised her voice, "Mr. Garriss, on your knees and you won't be hurt. Now which of you is Ian Brecker?"


	7. Training

**Training**

Step. Parry. Step and thrust.

"You think we should have killed that Shrike guy, don't you?" Tano asked.

Sidestep. Feint. Reverse momentum. Riposte.

"I've been thinking a lot about that too. I actually contacted the officer in charge of his prosecution."

Disarm maneuver. Toe thrust. Sidestep into sweeping kick.

"He said that Garris Shrike was training the kids to be pickpockets and burglars, then taking the lion's share of their 'earnings.'"

Block. Regain balance. Block. Block again.

"That's better than what we were thinking, but the officer said he'd probably be released in just a couple years."

Force jump retreat. Force pull to retrieve lightsaber. Dodge. Catch saber.

"So I don't know if keeping him alive gives him a chance for redemption, or a chance to kidnap and corrupt more kids in the future."

Dodge. Block. Dodge. Try to get off the ground. Roll. Block.

"Can you not talk while we fight?" Asajj asked, annoyed. She deactivated her saber, conceding the round. "And don't overthink Shrike. The scum isn't worth your time. Let the law deal with him."

"It isn't Shrike that I'm worried about, not really," Tano said, helping Asajj to her feet. "It's the idea, you know? If he had been what we thought he was, the law here is a death sentence. So how would it be different if we did kill him? And since we didn't kill him, are we to blame for everything he does from here on?"

"Girl, I'm a fighter, not a philosopher."Asajj said, getting a quick drink. Not alcohol this time. "You're supposed to be the expert on right and wrong. I just hurt other things without getting hurt. Though given our last five rounds, it seems I'm not even good for that. Seriously, how are you overpowering me? I'm a head taller than you and you haven't lifted a weight since you climbed on my ship."

"Lifted a…what?"

Asajj kept drinking, but pointed towards the rack of weights kept in one corner of the _Banshee_ 's cargo hold.

"Oh. Well…I first specialized in Shien, but Master Skywalker taught me how to make use of Djem So, so—"

"Sorry, Shien, Djem So? Asajj asked. Is that Togrutan?"

"…Okay, never thought I'd be teaching you about saber fighting," Tano said. "What do you know about the seven lightsaber forms?"

"Well, there's curved hilts and straight hilts," Asajj said. "Double ended. Double ended but curved. Short sabers. Once ran across some slavers that used whips that looked like lightsabers…"

"No. Nope. Sorry, not what I'm talking about." Tano crossed her arms, palms against her sides. "Okay, stop me if I'm being obvious. Here goes.

"The seven lightsaber forms are the different ways Force users choose to fight. It's not about specific movements, since different species often move in entirely different ways, but more how you choose to use your energy, both physically, mentally, and your connection with the force.. If we skip all the details, form one lets the Force dictate all your actions, trusting that it doesn't want to see you hurt. Form two is all about using the Force for foresight, anticipating your opponent's moves so your attacks will strike true. That's what you use. Form three is the same and the opposite of form two: it's all about using the Force to anticipate the best possible defense. That's what Master Kenobi uses. Form four uses the Force to augment your own agility, move in places your opponent won't expect. That's how Master Yoda goes from needing a cane to…have you ever seen him fight?"

Ventress nodded reluctantly. She'd been trying to forget her humiliation on Toydaria for years.

"Form five is the same idea as form four, but instead of using the Force for agility, you use it for strength. That's what I use. If it was just my muscles against yours, you'd beat me every time. But the Force is my ally."

Asajj once again cursed Dooku for the incompleteness of her training. "What else?"

"Hmm?"

"You said there were seven forms. That's only five. And you haven't explained anything about Shien or Djem So."

"Oh. Well, form six is barely a form. Mostly it just says 'Those other five forms are pretty useful for different things. Instead of specializing in any of them, I'll just use whatever fits the situation.' Flexible, but weak. And form seven…I don't really know. Master Windu is the only Jedi at the temple who really mastered it, and he never talked about it much. Something about total control of the Force. Can't tell you more than that.

"As for Shien and Djem So, they're just two more specialized ways of using form five. Shien is for dealing with blaster fire, deflecting the bolts where you want them to go without the impact of the bolt altering the lightsabers angle. Djem So is for physically overpowering others in close-quarters combat with the aid of the Force."

Asajj had always assumed Skywalker must be built like a pale Savage under those robes. The revelation that his strength came from the Force was rather disappointing.

"So how do you do it?" Asajj asked.

"Umm…" Tano looked around. "Okay, show me how you work out. The most you could ever lift at once."

Asajj went along with her request, loading a bar with several heavy weights, and demonstrated that she could lift it, albeit with great effort.

"Alright, now stand back here," Tano said.

Asajj went to the other end of the room, as requested.

"Now lift the weights."

Asajj thought she could see where this was going. She reached out with the Force and lifted the weights.

"Easy, right? The key to forms four and five is melding the physical strength with telekinesis. It isn't an easy balance, but a powerful technique when mastered. What I don't get is how you don't already know this. You held a blade lock with Master Luminara and me at the same time. You jump like a kyuzo. Is that just a Dathomirian thing? I don't remember reading that you have natural strength on that scale."

Asajj shrugged. "Never really thought about it. I just do what I need to do. If I spent time thinking about how I did it, I'd be killed while I hesitated."

"But you have time now," Tano said. "All the time in the world, really. And cash to burn. So what do you plan on doing now."

"Live, mostly," Asajj said. "The Jedi have pardoned me. Dooku seems to have lost interest in me. But I made one other enemy that I think still wants me dead. A bounty hunter named Aurra Sing."


	8. Swan Song

**Swan Song**

"Aurra Sing?" Ahsoka asked. "She's a huge name among bounty hunters. Dooku must have put a massive fortune on your head."

"No," Ventress said. "The official Separatist line is that, when Mother Talzin refused to extradite me for my war crimes, General Grievous routed the nightsisters and personally killed me in single combat. I doubt Dooku believes it, but as long as I act dead, he won't interrupt his war to complete his genocide."

Ahsoka was taken aback. Ventress always seemed grouchy, but the casual way she talked about…all of that…it was heart-breaking? Pitiable?

Ahsoka stored those thoughts away. She could process them later. Keep the conversation moving. "So did you steal your ship from a Hutt or something?"

"Worse," Ventress said. "I double-crossed her son, stole his share of a bounty. She didn't take kindly to that. So she tracked me down, played coy, convinced me to let her on my ship. She can be quite…persuasive. She managed to drug me when my defenses were down. When I woke, I was tied up and my ship was in the middle of hyperspace, headed on a crash course towards Coruscant."

"She…" Ahsoka could hardly believe it. "…I've run into Sing before. She was trying to assassinate Senator Amidala. First time I was ever shot. But I never would have thought she could do something like…that."

Ventress looked confused at Ahsoka's reaction, "Killing me is more evil than killing Amidala? I'd have thought 'Senator-suing-for-peace ranks higher than amoral-bounty hunter."

Ahsoka felt an unexpected stab of annoyance. "You are not amoral. You're trying. That counts for a lot." Ahsoka surprised herself with those words, but knew they were honest. She saw that same surprise mirrored on Ventress' face, mingle with...gratitude? Ignoring the sudden heat in the room, she rushed on to avoid addressing it. "But, I was talking about her method of killing you. Ba—another padawan at the temple, before the war, did the math. If a capital ship hit the planet at full lightspeed, Coruscant would crack like an egg. If a ship this size hit the Jedi Temple, the Chancellor would be dead before he could look up from his desk."

"Grievous wanted to do something like that early in the war," Ventress said. "Dooku refused any strategy with that degree of civilian casualty. He was almost a good man when the war began."

Ahsoka doubted that, but didn't interrupt.

"A tactical droid looked into it. MM-50 told me every planet that could ever afford it has put up defenses against that. Tractor fields, laser grids. If Sing's plan had gone through, the Banshee would have been annihilated eight thousand kilometers before impact."

"And you just claimed a bounty in your own name," Ahsoka thought out loud. "If she's paying any attention, she'll know where we are."

"Where I am," Ventress corrected. "I doubt she knows about you. So while you hunt her down, I'll hole up here in the ship, scanning for unscheduled interstellar traffic."

"You want to split up?" Ahsoka was surprised that her apprehension was related to the mission, and not to the fear that Ventress would abandon her. "It's not like I can sneak up on her; she knows my face. And I'm a togruta, it's not like it's easy for me to blend into a crowd, not on this planet."

"Hmmm…" Ventress considered, "I have an idea that could help with that."

"This is the stupidest possible plan." Ahsoka grumbled through her comm.

Ventress's voice crackled through Ahsoka's new helmet, "Have you lost sight of her?"

"Sing is still scoping out the _Banshee_ , but yes I have lost visual. I can't see anything in this thing."

They'd needed to wait almost two weeks for Aurra Sing to arrive on Corellia. In that time, Ventress discovered that Graballa the Hutt (a very minor cousin of Jabba) had put out an enormous bounty on Sing. Apparently Sing claimed a bounty on a dirty smuggler. Said smuggler happened to be running spice for the Hutt.

Ahsoka did some sightseeing and determined the best sniper nest with a view of Coronet City's spaceport. She then began playing her part, begging on the streets nearby, wearing the helmet Ventress ordered for her. Unfortunately, Ventress hadn't been able to procure a helmet designed with montrals and headtails in mind. So she had improvised.

"Are you still whining about that?" Ventress's voice snapped. "Toughen up. It's the only one large enough to not give you away. And get eyes on the target. This could be life or death."

Ahsoka paused as a young woman paused to drop a credit in her tin, along with some condescending advice on where a veteran Bith might be able to find work around town. The racial slur was almost enough to get Ahsoka to break character.

"That line was convincing a week ago," Ahsoka said when the donator had moved along. "But at this point—she's moving."

"She's what?" Ventress barked. "Where is she? Where's she going?"

"I don't know," Ahsoka mumbled, grabbing the neck of the oversized helmet and adjusting the view of the misplaced eye holes. "There she is. Coming your way. Finally."

"Get into position," Ventress said.

Ahsoka rose from her position, stretched a little to get a prone day's stiffness out of her legs. The street wasn't quite empty; an apparently lost overweight man was wandering by for the third time that day. She'd have preferred to keep a lower profile, but there wasn't much time. She called on the force and leapt directly to the rooftop of the nearest building. She could sense Sing making her way through the mostly empty streets below. Hopefully the old man wouldn't raise any sort of alarm too quickly.

Ahsoka discarded her oversized helmet and plotted her course. She ran across her building and leapt to the next. These inner-city roads were narrow, and it wasn't difficult to outpace the sniper. She charged up a staircase, scaled a flagpole and flipped over a wall. Ahsoka reveled in the chance to stretch her limbs and meld the force's strength with her own.

Ahsoka crouched on the wall above the _Banshee's_ docking space, waiting for Sing to arrive. "In position," she whispered into her comm.

Her comm. Still in the helmet three blocks back.

And she had no time. Sing was in the hangar, rushing towards the _Banshee_ , thermal detonator in hand. Ahsoka didn't know if she had the firepower to destroy the ship, but she was in no mood to find out.

The plan was never that good in the first place. Time to improvise.

Ahsoka launched herself from her perch, landing between Sing and the exit. She ignited her lightsaber. "Drop it, Sing!"

The pale antenna woman pulled up short. "Jedi? What are you doing here?"

"I'm bringing you in. And I said drop the explosive. We don't have to do this the hard way." Ahsoka tried her best to sound threatening.

"Can we do this in five minutes, child? I have some business to finish here." Sing primed the detonator and lobbed it towards the _Banshee_.

Ahsoka reached out with the force and grabbed the explosive out of the air. She raised it as high as she could in the spare seconds she had.

The volume of the small explosion would inevitably bring the authorities. They would stand little chance against someone as deadly as Sing. This needed to end quickly.

Sing seemed to agree. Both of her pistols had found their way out of her holsters and were leveled at Ahsoka's head.

"I'm not looking for a fight with the Jedi today girl. Back off. We've done this before, it—"

Sing didn't bother to finish her sentence. A hiss of steam and the creaking of metal sounded directly behind her.

"Thermal detonators and blasters?" The explosion had alerted Ventress to Sing's arrival. She sauntered down the _Banshee_ 's boarding ramp, lit lightsaber in hand. "I think I like your other toys better."

Sing whipped her blasters around and began unleashing a storm of blasterfire at Ventress.

Ventress darted one way and then the other, dodging most of the attack and deflecting the rest, but Sing's attack was relentless even as the veteran bounty hunter ran away from both Ventress and Ahsoka. She vaulted over an empty crate and renewed her attack, spitting dozens of blaster bolts at the other bald, grey-skinned woman.

Ahsoka knew Sing's offense would outlast Ventress's defense if she did not intervene. All her experience dealing with blasters told her to close the gap and get within striking range to force either Sing's surrender or strike a debilitating blow. But something was off this time. A whisper told her to run. Not to attack Sing. Not to defend Ventress. Not to escape. But to an unremarkable stretch of ground that wasn't even useful as cover from the laser blasts.

Ahsoka ignored her experience and listened to the Force's whisper.

No sooner had she found footing on that ground than Ventress raised her saber, accidentally deflecting one of Sing's deadly attacks directly at Ahsoka.

Ahsoka reacted without thinking, batting the laserfire away.

The shot caught Aurra Sing in the center of her chest. Her eyes went wide, but she said nothing, body limp. Her blasters hit the ground a moment before she did. A spasm in her dying throes, or perhaps the angle of the impact made her finger squeeze the trigger one last time, the aimless shot striking the dirt without effect.


	9. Reward

**Reward**

"Thirty-five thousand, your eminence?" Asajj said. "I humbly beg a portion of your wisdom. In my foolishness I assumed I would be paid the amount offered for Aurra Sing's death."

Jabba the Hutt began speaking, but Asajj ignored him. Neither she nor Tano understood a word of Huttese. Jabba's self-important valet would translate the Huttese into Rylothi, and then an ill-repaired protocol droid would finally translate into basic. The whole ordeal would be merely an annoyance, except that the droid knew Huttese and both the others could speak Basic if they weren't so damnably proud.

"Take the thirty-five," Tano stood outside the hologram's scanner so the gangster wouldn't see her. "You don't need the money. And you don't want the Hutts as enemies."

Asajj didn't answer. Any perceived rudeness could cost them more than just the bounty. The Hutts were indeed dangerous enemies.

The protocol droid finally began speaking, "Mighty Jabba derides you as the lowest kind of scum, and says it is only fitting that you should serve one as idiotic as Graballa. Graballa cannot pay your bounty. But that fool is kin to Jabba, and for this reason you shall be paid the 50,000 you have been promised, if you are short-sighted enough to demand it. However, the bounty hunter Aurra Sing had found favor with Jabba. She was "his kind of scum," and served him well on several occasions. For this reason, he demands a tribute of 15,000 credits. Failure to provide such a gift of goodwill will prompt Jabba to find other ways for you to compensate him."

Asajj bristled at the overgrown slug's insults. She opened her mouth to demand the full fifty-thousand and dare him to send his best bounty hunters so she could pass along her "tribute," but then she stopped. Fury emanated from behind her eyes, and power flowed down her limbs. The temptation to just try crushing the twi'lek's larynx was potent.

The sensation should have been familiar, comfortable even. An ecstasy of furyand power. But something was off. The emotion didn't feel…natural. Asajj wasn't accustomed to analyzing her feelings; Dooku had taught her early to revel in her pain and rage and hatred. Examining emotion kills it. But the degree of her anger towards Jabba simply didn't make sense. The Hutt covered for his cousin to cover his own reputation. He insulted her. He demanded a fraction of the bounty back so his other bounty-hunters-on-staff wouldn't revolt.

And then it clicked. Tano. Asajj looked away from the hologram for half a second. Hatred clouded the togruta's face, loathing born of righteous wrath. Asajj was forcibly reminded of her companion's former mentor.

Asajj hated ignoring her emotions. Felt unnatural, like a Jedi, but she managed to say, "Your words are wise and appreciated, mighty Jabba. We shall of course extend a gift of twenty thousand credits to your eminence for your time. I need not waste any more of it."

Asajj cut the hologram. She rounded on Tano, "What was that?"

Tano still looked furious, "That was you handing a slaver and a drug lord five thousand more credits than was needed to keep us safe."

"That was me avoiding a debt," Asajj said. "Bounties from crime lord's aren't like bounties from governments. But I was talking about this. You. I've never seen you like this before. Why?"

Tano's eyes narrowed. "You got your money. That's enough for today." She turned towards her bedroom.

Asajj forced the door shut from across the room. "Your anger was intense enough to almost make me pick a fight with the most brutal gangster in the galaxy. We can't afford something like that happening again. Talk. That's what partners do, isn't it?"

"Maybe you'd be better off with a different 'partner' then," Tano said, wrenching the door open manually.

"What, you want to leave now? You're the one that wanted to come with me in the first place!"Asajj said, following Tano out of the cockpit.

"Yeah, well, things aren't working out the way they were supposed to." Tano said.

"How? You've approved of everything we've done so far. You can't care this much about five thousand credits. What is actually going on?"

"I killed a woman yesterday! One who wasn't trying to kill me and who we definitely could have taken alive."

"You were trying to save me—"

"I wasn't trying to do anything! I listened to the Force, which has never led to people dying before. I was supposed to be leading you back to the light, you weren't supposed to drag me into the dark. I don't want to be you."

"I've never agreed with you more. I'd do anything to not be me." Asajj spat. Tano's infectious anger melded with her own. "Traitor to the Separatists. War criminal to the Republic. You are wasting your time with me. Because I'm destined to be exactly the scum Jabba said I am. Bounty hunter. Assassin. I can try to be noble about it, but once the alcohol isn't enough to help me forget Rattatak and Dathomir, I'll turn to death sticks or worse." This was more than Ventress had meant to say, but she didn't stop. "And then it won't matter what jobs I take, as long as it pays enough for the next hit. Damn…I need a drink. Something hard. And I'd wager you do to. Come on, I saw a cantina down the way."

Asajj was certain Tano followed her silently off the ship and down the street, but wasn't brave enough to look her partner in the face.


	10. Merth

**Merth**

Ventress's "cantina" was little more than a knee-high table and a half-dozen bottles in the alley between a second-hand clothes shop and a grocery store. The middle-aged woman who ran the table produced two kneeling cushions for the bounty-hunting duo.

As Ahsoka approached, she felt a wave of warmth wash over her, chasing away the winter night's chill. She suspected there was a heating sphere hidden under the table. Little though she actually wanted to spend more time with Ventress at the moment, given her shame at her too-honest outburst, the prospect of a drink sounded like precisely the right kind of rebellion for the moment. The Jedi Order did not specifically forbid the consumption of alcohol (a loophole that Ahsoka suspected was championed by Obi-Wan), but its presence was forbidden in the temple. The force made her kill someone on accident, so she'd drink on purpose. Perhaps that wasn't a logical progression, but now hardly seemed the time for introspection. She knelt gracefully and properly on the cushion.

Ventress plopped down next to her. "I'll take two shots of your strongest," she said.

"And I'll take that one," Ahsoka said, picking a bottle at random.

The woman looked Ahsoka up and down, "Aren't you a little short for a Stürm Topper?"

"Ha, you should take the night off, Sil." A ruddy faced old man waddled towards the table. He waved off her protests before Sil could voice them, "I know, it's been ages, it will be wonderful to catch up tomorrow. But right now you need sleep, my girl. Don't fret, I'll keep your customers company. Shoo, shoo."

Sil made no protest and left the table's warmth.

"I am sorry to interrupt like that," the old man said. "But I shall strive to be a joy in this night's conversations."

"Don't bother," Ventress said. "We're here for drinks, not gossip."

"Oh, of course!" The man clapped a fat, dramatic hand to his forehead. "Ha, I suppose I'm better at drinking than tending a bar. But for one night, I can do this for you: you asked for a Stürm Topper, did you not miss? Well, I'm only too happy to oblige." The cheerful man knocked over two bottles as he filled a small glass with the third.

Ahsoka took the glass. It had a strange weight to it. This was it. The first real liquor she'd ever consumed. The occasion felt momentous somehow. A change of direction. She wasn't merely stepping away from the temple, stopping to find time to think. This was a step down a new path, one that she doubted would ever lead to the Jedi Council. She'd idly imagined it before, what it would mean to sit in that high room with Masters Plo and Yoda, with Obi-Wan and Anakin (for how could he not be admitted to the council in due time) and solve all that was wrong with the galaxy. It wasn't until now, when that dream was almost lost that she realized how much she still cherished it.

Ventress was given her drinks, specially mixed. The man began admiring the bottles aloud; perhaps he was some manner of connoisseur.

Ahsoka didn't bother to listen to Ventress's irritated reply, nor the man's joking rebuttal.

What was she doing here? If she wanted so badly to be among the greatest of all Jedi, why had she walked away? The council had all but told her she would be reinstated as a Knight. At only 16, that would be younger even than when Anakin was knighted. If she wanted a place on the council, she'd been on the right track. But sitting across from Masters Windu and Mundi just didn't sound right either. She had felt so impulsively certain that leaving the Order was the correct choice that she'd assumed she was simply feeling the Will of the Force.

But did she trust the Force now? Just yesterday it had guided her to kill when mercy was an option. When Yoda spoke of the light side, he said that the ideal Jedi has no will of their own, but in all things listens to the will of the living force, like its desires were entirely peaceful and good. But Ahsoka remembered Mortis. The light was not the Force's only aspect, and even it was capable of violence and defeat.

Surrendering to the will of the Force felt as wrong as trusting in the Jedi Council. But what other options did she have. Left to her own wisdom, she…what? Did this? Sharing drinks with the likes of Asajj Ventress?

Ahsoka glanced away from her drink at her partner. If Ventress had ever meant to continue their conversation from the ship, she certainly didn't look interested now. On the contrary, while the old man prattled on, Ventress looked as introspective as Ahsoka had been until a moment ago, elbows on knees, hands cupping her bald head.

"…but you know, I think you might be right not to touch that drink, miss." The old man said. "I get the feeling you don't do much drinking, do you?

Ahsoka politely shook her head.

"Didn't think so. Hardly have the belly for it," he said, clapping a hand to his own round stomach. He chuckled a bit to himself before continuing, "Stürm is a fine vintage to be sure, but it can do strange things to a person if they aren't prepared for it. I know you asked for it, but that don't mean you have to drink it. As you can see, there are many other choices right within reach. And if those don't strike your fancy, I'm sure I could find you just about any drink you'd like in a city like this.

"But, if I may…" he produced an additional bottle and poured another drink for Ahsoka. "I might recommend this for you. Straight from Shili. Made by a certain Jaantla Tano."

Ahsoka started. She felt a brief moment of fear, going so far as to place a hand on her lightsaber. But she felt no ill intent at all from this pudgy old man and his unwavering smile.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I suppose I do have you at a disadvantage Ahsoka Tano," Merth said, pouring a drink for himself. "My name is Merth. Just Merth, mind you. Surnames went out of vogue centuries ago on Serenno."

"Serenno," Ahsoka said. "Isn't that—?"

"Count Dooku's once and current home, yes."

Ahsoka expected some sort of reaction from Ventress at the mention of her former master, but she seemed to still be ignoring Merth to the best of her ability.

"At least, I assume that was how you were familiar with my birthplace. Remarkable how a single person can change the perception of everyone in his shadow. Nobody in the core worlds seems to remember Serenno's long tradition of artistry. You would adore some of the paintings my ancestors and their kin have produced. Or, at least, I do. No accounting for taste really. And on that note, I'm not sure if I could ever forgive someone who denounced a traditional Serennese meal. Oh, I could serenade you for hours on the virtues of Serenno's culture. Ha! Serenade on Serenno." Merth chuckled at his own unintentional wordplay.

Ahsoka was not amused. She shook Ventress's shoulder, but her elder partner did not stir.

Merth seemed to find this even funnier.

Ahsoka began to panic, "Ventress, Ventress! Wake up! This is no time to be drunk!"

Merth's laughter was cut short, "You are genuinely distressed. I'm so sorry. You can relax, Miss Ventress is quite safe. I've merely slipped Somni into her drink. She'll sleep like a child for the next few hours, but shall awaken brighter and fresher than ever."

Ahsoka searched for deception in the force around him, but found none, "Why?"

"I wished a conversation with you, one without your companion's intervention."

"Why?"

Merth smiled, "Are we to play the game of 'why?' I do wish we had the time; I find it the quickest way to find gaps in one's knowledge. I wish I could say that filling those gaps reduces their number, but I fear it is not so." His laughter this time was of sadness, rather than glee.

"I'm in no mood for games, Merth," Ahsoka said. "What do the Separatists want with me? I'm not a Jedi anymore."

"Remarkable how little of what you just said reflects the truth. I am not aligned with the Separatists, although I sympathize with many of their goals. I do not believe they have any particular interest in you. And you won't find that walking away from the temple is enough to keep you from being a Jedi, Miss Tano. And I think there's little more in the galaxy that you need more than a bit of fun."

"Enough with the riddles," Ahsoka said, grabbing her hilt. "What do you want?"

Merth seemed entirely unimpressed by Ahsoka's implied threat, "Still not quite the right question, but I'll answer it nonetheless. I want you to be happy and satisfied with your life, and for everyone you meet to be happier for having met you."

Ahsoka was nonplussed. Her questions were only drawing more questions. She decided to play his game. "Why?"

Merth chuckled, "'Why,' once again? Well, I suppose I desire that for you because I desire it for everyone."

"Why?"

"Because I am rather selfish, and I desire for myself to be happy. And I find the most happiness in the company of happy people."

"Why?"

"Because I enjoy being happy. Or, if you were referring to my second statement, I'd attribute that preference of mine to be some combination of genetics, the philosophies of my teachers, and the conclusions I have personally drawn regarding the ideal role and temperament of a Jedi."

"You want to emulate the Jedi?"

"Breaking the rules of the game, but I'm glad you're attentive. Not 'the Jedi.' The ideal Jedi."

"Why?"

"I had thought that would be obvious by now. I am a Jedi."

Ahsoka waited for the laughter. For the punchline. None came. "You're a Jedi? A fat, laughing old man who doesn't carry a lightsaber? Very convincing story."

Merth raised his eyebrows, "Not carrying a lightsaber means I cannot be a Jedi? This war has destroyed more than I realized if you truly believe that. I supposed I should not be surprised, not when you've spent so much time idolizing Skywalker. Powerful with the force that one, and more compassion in him than any master on the council, but he always seems to solve his problems in the same way, doesn't he?"

Ahsoka found herself on her feet, her unlit saber pointed directly at Merth's heart. "Don't you dare criticize Master Anakin. Not to me. And you claim that you are a Jedi? I ought to—"

"I beg you, please put that away." Merth said.

His voice had changed, taken on a desperate tone, all playfulness abandoned. But not a fearful one, Ahsoka noted.

"Master Vos is eager for a chance to intervene. Don't give him the excuse. I apologize for being so infuriating. I promise to explain myself properly if you'll let me."

Ahsoka felt that fury pulsing against the back of her eyes for the second time that day. Ventress's words echoed in her head. "I'd do anything to not be me." Ahsoka didn't know what she was doing with her life, but this, threatening old men for being mysterious, wasn't her.

She sat and clipped her saber back to her belt. "Talk."

Merth exhaled deeply and downed the drink he'd been holding. "Again, I am sorry for frustrating you like that. I needed to see your reaction. If it is any consolation at all, I never lied to you. My name is Merth, I was born on Serenno before being whisked away to the Jedi temple, and I do wish absolute happiness on your future. As you have noticed though, I am no warrior. Haven't even held my lightsaber in a decade. And I'm not very strong in the force either. Completely useless on the frontlines. I can't say I'm surprised you haven't heard of me.

"Have you ever heard of Xendor? Exar Kun? Revan? Not stories we teach very often anymore. I wish we would. They were all immensely powerful dark side practitioners who spread war and chaos across the galaxy. And all were first trained as Jedi. I have spent my life studying the lives and cultures of hundreds of species across the galaxy, but in every one of them that has ever historically produced a force-sensitive individual, I find one thing in common: the Jedi way of letting go of attachment and suppressing emotion is antithetical to their very existence.

"And I…I am boring you. I'll skip to the point. You have been a good Jedi. You helped a whole lot of people. But you've also gone through more hardships than anyone your age ever should have to, Jedi or no. And that was before being betrayed by Barriss. I…I see that that is still a fresh wound. In my research of your talents and exploits, I know that you know something of healing where the flesh is concerned. But your mind cannot be healed that simply. What you need now is bedrest for the mind. Friends. Happiness. A hobby. Not more violence. Your decision to spend time with Miss Ventress simply isn't conducive to a healthy psyche. If you were to return to the Jedi Temple, I will do everything in my power to ensure that you have time to heal. If you are determined to stay away—and I wish to be clear, I think it was both brave and wise for you to leave in the first place—I can arrange for you to spend time as a student in the Republic Academy on Hosnian Prime with people your age. Work as a doctor on Coruscant, aiding the sick and suffering in a way only you can. Or…" Merth pushed Ahsoka's second drink nearer to her hand. "I've spoken with your parents. They've been watching your progress from afar your whole life. They are so proud of you. They would like nothing better than a chance to reconnect."

Merth finally finished speaking.

Ahsoka took a moment to let her thoughts congeal. "So you're some kind of Jedi psychiatrist?"

Merth nodded.

"And you think that Ventress is going to turn me to the Dark Side?"

Merth shook his head. When he looked at Ventress, he actually looked…sad. "Not precisely. I told you I'm traveling with Master Quinlan Vos. He has been very interested in Miss Ventress for quite some time, and has shared his finding with me. Hers is a tragic tale, and I hold a great deal of pity for her situation. I doubt very much that she believes in anything, nor wants anything strongly enough to deliberately turn you. If she were, I think you are more than strong enough to rebuff her seduction.

"But—forgive my bluntness—you are lost. What Ventress could not do on purpose she may achieve on accident. You are a pair of immensely powerful young women who don't seem to have any idea how you wish to put your strength to use. One more emotionally traumatic event could send either of you into a spiral of self-destruction, and the amount of damage you could do to the galaxy around you before being consumed…that is what I fear.

"What you need right now is stability. Friends, family, peers, coworkers, an outlet to dispel the storm of emotions raging within you. Suppressing emotions can cause the best of us to lash out in the worst ways if they are unleashed, or can warp the mind if they are left untended and unresolved. The Jedi would take you back in an instant, but believe me when I say the Jedi's way of life simply isn't for everyone. Your work as a waitress, while unfulfilling, was very healthy for you. Bounty hunting is not a safe path for you. I know that you have engaged in a great deal of combat throughout the war, but you always had mentors and commanders to keep you pointed in the right direction. Now, all you have is Ventress. And bounty hunting is a dangerous profession. What will you do if she dies? What do you think she will do if you die? No matter what you do, keep in mind that you have most of your life ahead of you."

"...So, what, I'm supposed to just decide my life's path right now?" Ahsoka asked.

"We each decide what we are 'supposed' to do, and it's only our own decision which truly matter." Merth's way of making every sentence sound like a philosophical axiom made Ahsoka wonder how she had failed to identify him as a Jedi in the first place. "But you may of course take your time. But, if you'll allow the metaphor, I would advise thinking of it less like choosing a path which must be re-trod should the walker come to regret their choice at the fork, but, well, more of a drink." He toasted Ahsoka with another glass and downed it in a single gulp. "Be careful that you don't drink poison of course, but once you've tasted it, you can always pick up another bottle."

With a final chuckle, Merth set a personal communicator in front of Ahsoka and made his departure.

Ahsoka sat for a time, staring at the collection of bottles the laughing Jedi had left behind.

Midnight had come and gone when Ahsoka finally grasped the cup of Stürm and drank its contents. She then hoisted Ventress over her shoulder and returned to the _Banshee_ for what was left of the night.


	11. The Creed

**The Creed**

Asajj woke early. Tano did not. This gave the bald bounty hunter plenty of time to wonder what happened after she started drinking.

Damn it all to hell, she was supposed to be proving that she wasn't a hopeless cause, not showing off the worst parts of herself.

Well, not the worst. At least the girl didn't know about Savage.

Well, if the girl did leave, that would simplify things. Ventress could buy a comfortable life for herself and—

Asajj didn't bother finishing the lie. Whether she was even capable of a peaceful life or not, she didn't want Tano to leave. The girl could be condescending, preachy, naïve, and she built straight lightsabers, but she also listened to Asajj, looked out for her, called her "partner." Even Ky Narec, kindest of her masters, had never seen Asajj as more than a hand holding a lightsaber.

Asajj stood. Moping solved nothing. Tano left Coruscant to help Asajj make reparation for her supposed war crimes. Not much to be done there, but she could make up for last night.

Asajj checked the girl's bunk again. Tano was still asleep, an open bottle of…something vile on her cabinet.

Probably her first time drinking. She'd need a hangover cure. Asajj grabbed her helmet and lightsaber set out to acquire the appropriate ingredients.

Asajj was stepping out of the grocery store when she sensed danger. Murderous intent. Apparently Tano woke with a headache.

Asajj set her jaw and began her trek back to the Banshee.

"I'll have to talk her down," Asajj thought to herself as she passed a Duros male and a Zabrak female having a hushed argument, "From what I remember, I never even asked her to come along, so how angry can she really be?"

"What you remember doesn't include most of last night," a quiet cold voice reminded Asajj from the back of her mind. "Who knows what she's actually angry about."

A Trandoshan eyed her in a way Asajj didn't like at all. She slipped into an adjacent alley to avoid him.

"Reason probably isn't a priority for her," Asajj mused, emerging onto a mostly empty street. "How do you apologize when you don't know what—"

The street right behind Asajj exploded.

Asajj was lifted bodily by the shockwave, and her head cracked against the street stones.

"You are still weak." Count Dooku's voice expanded in her head, pushing against the inside of her skull. "A failure in all you attempt."

He couldn't be here.

"Shortsighted. Purposeless. And for that you will die."

Wait, he couldn't be here. This was a core world, and Dooku wouldn't leave the war effort just to track her down.

"What?"

Asajj blinked her eyes against the intense pain in the back of her head. She realized she was lying face down on the cobbled street. Her helmet was missing. Her hands and feet were bound together behind her back. She strained her neck in an effort to see who was speaking. The face of a young clone trooper swam into view above her.

"I said, we are executing you, for the crime of claiming the bounty of a fellow hunter."

His words reverberated against the back of her eye sockets. But pain could be managed. Asajj took her eyes off the trooper and checked the rest of her surroundings. The Zabrak woman she'd seen earlier had a blaster rifle trained on her. The Duros stood nearby, casually fondling the grips of his blaster pistols. The Trandoshan was leaning against a nearby building, looking bored more than anything.

Asajj felt her bindings suddenly tighten. Ignoring the fresh wave of pain as her joints were stretched to the breaking point, she swung her head around. Despair threatened to overwhelm her as she saw still more bodies staring down at her. A scarred man with a turban was fiddling with the ropes tying her place. An enormous Kyuzo with a circular metal hat kneeled next to his hound. A nervous Rodian kept peeking glances at the hound. A pink theelin stood on a nearby rooftop, watching the scene play out below her.

And a droid…no, not just a droid. Asajj recognized that one. Highsinger, from the train job. A bounty hunter. The identities of some of the others clicked into place as her brain began to recover. Dengar, Latts Razzi, and Bossk she'd met. She didn't recognize the Zabrak or the Rodian, but if these were all bounty hunters, those two must be Embo and Cad Bane. And the clone…not many sets of armor like that ever left Mandalore.

Asajj had no idea how she could get out of this one. Even if she could summon the concentration to tap into the force—and the pounding in her head was still deafening—there were just too many of them. And whatever Dengar did with the ropes seemed to be holding. No chance of rescue either; even if Ahsoka might want to, she was probably still dead to the world. Asajj cursed herself for dismissing the warning the Force had given her.

"Since when are there rules for who can claim what bounty?" Asajj asked desperately.

"The Bounty Hunter's Creed is ancient and must be obeyed," Boba Fett said. "No hunter shall harm another hunter, nor interfere with their hunt." He pointed Asajj's borrowed lightsaber at the back of Asajj's head. "Any last requests?"

"Don't act like this is business for you," Cad Bane said. "You're a child twice orphaned looking for revenge. Ain't nobody who's cared about the Creed in a millennia, besides Bossk."

The reptile hissed.

"We agreed I was taking point on this mission, Bane." Boba said through gritted teeth.

"And you've really impressed me," Bane quipped. "A thermal detonator in the middle of a city. You're damn lucky Dengar has friends in the security around here, and luckier still that Miss-Nameless-Hunter here wasn't paying attention. And now you're holding onto that saber like it's some kind of trophy."

"Enough!" Fett raised the saber over his head and ignited it. "Any last words?"

Asajj could think of nothing, but noticed that Razzi had disappeared from her rooftop post.

"She'sss a hunter," Bossk said. "She has earned points. Tell her why she mussst die."

Bane looked annoyed, "You killed Aurra Sing. Boba liked her, invoked the code. But I reckon most of this lot just wants the reward. Aurra Sing set things up so her whole fortune would be placed as a bounty on the head of anyone who killed her. Me though, I got bigger plans in mind. Republic says they had a jailbreak, some big names with bigger bounties up for grab. But I could use a crew for one guy in particular."

"Not now." Boba said, "Now it's time for her to die."

The lightsaber dropped six inches before stopping in place.

"What the—?" Boba placed his whole weight on the saber, trying to force it the last foot down into Asajj's flesh.

"That isn't going to happen." Ahsoka Tano spoke from the center of the road, one hand holding her yellow saber in a defensive position, other hand outstretched, holding her green saber in place.

"Ahsoka?" The Zabrak woman who had been so careful to keep Asajj in the crosshairs of her blaster was distracted.

"Bad timing girl," Bane said. "Dooku has a bounty on every Jedi head."

"I'm no Jedi," Ahsoka said. She charged.

An impressive entrance, and Asajj was grateful for the gesture, but even if she'd managed to quietly take down Razzi, nine against one was suicidal odds. Bane, Dengar, Bossk, and Highsinger already had her on the defensive under their combined fire.

So Asajj made her move, pathetic though she knew it to be. She made the smallest of force pushes, aiming and squeezing the trigger to the distracted Rodian's blaster.

The bolt meant for Embo went astray, striking the ground at his hound's feet. So instead of quietly taking down one of the hunting party's strongest, Asajj watched as Embo knocked the Rodian out with a brutal smash of his heavy headgear.

But Asajj's ploy hadn't gone unnoticed, "No more games," Boba said. He abandoned the floating lightsaber and hoisted his rifle.

He shot Asajj in the back.

Dooku had taught her pain. She knew what to expect when her every nerve was alight with an electricity composed of cold fury and burning disdain. That pain was intense, but it always left Ventress as strong as she had ever been. That she could cope with.

But when she suddenly realized half her lungs were physically burning, within her chest, she had nothing but panic. Her mind was a torrent of chaos and agony, and a sound tore from her throat which she never would have thought she could make.

And then Boba squeezed the trigger again.

And again.


	12. Desperation

**Desperation**

"The Force called me here. There must be something I can do." Ahsoka thought.

She dodged two shots from Cad Bane, ducked beneath a brutal swipe from Bossk's claws, and deflected a shot from C-21 Highsinger, all while keeping a firm force grip on Ventress's saber. "It's just another mission. Just a bunch of droids with blasters. Nothing I haven't dealt with before. Oh, but I should keep them alive. Bane is scum, but Embo is honorable, Sugi is a hero, and I don't even know—"

Ventress screamed.

A pulsing wave of force energy was carried in that hellish sound. Bane and Bossk were knocked off their feet. Sugi dropped to one knee, clutching her heart. Embo's dog ran away, master following close behind. The scarred human and the rodian were convulsing on the ground, frothing from the moth.

A terrible tremor coursed through Ahsoka's montrals. Her horns heard sounds more acutely than human skin flaps, which made Ventress's wail all the more debilitating. Through the blinding agony, Ahsoka wondered if she was feeling her montrals being rent from her head. Then she questioned if cutting them off would be worth ending the pain.

Fett squeezed the trigger again, aiming for the base of Ventress's spine.

Ventress's force scream intensified.

The cacophony did nothing to hinder C-21. The droid took advantage of the situation by blasting a shot through Ahsoka's shoulder.

Her arm went limp, and the lightsaber fell from her grasp.

Somehow the new pain cut through the old, and the familiarity of a blaster wound gave Ahsoka clarity. "The Force brought me here," she thought. "If it wants me to die, there's nothing I'll be able to do to stop that, so don't think about it. If I'm supposed to just escape, it wouldn't have brought me here. So I must be able to help Ventress somehow. Just think. I've been in worse situations. I escaped Grievous while protecting younglings. No one died then. No one dies today. Just think."

Fett fired a third time, into Ventress's throat.

The scream stopped.

Ahsoka stopped thinking.

She felt anger.

Maybe someone will die today.

With her one working arm, Ahsoka reached out and pulled the Mandalorian warrior away from Ventress. She realized when his armor slammed into her that he was heavier than she anticipated, but that didn't matter. The force was her ally, and it flowed through her small frame. She kicked his legs out from behind him and forced him to his knees. Boba flailed wildly but ineffectually as her good hand snaked around his torso and began crushing his relatively unarmored throat.

"Get away or he dies!" she cried. Something was wrong with her hearing, everything sounded like she was underwater.

The assorted bounty hunters did not run. Most of them didn't move. Dengar and Greedo were out cold. Sugi looked like she was recovering from a heart attack. Highsinger and Bossk looked unsure of how to proceed. Bossk looked to Boba for instruction. Highsinger looked to Cad Bane.

Ventress wasn't moving.

Focus.

"Hostage ain't worth much if the other party don't much care for 'em." Bane said, his voice strangely distorted in Ahsoka's mind. He wasted no time in in leveling a shot at Ahsoka.

Ahsoka quickly hid behind Fett's Mandalorian armor. Bane's shot ricocheted off Boba's forehead.

"Cute trick. But what do you think happens after you kill him? You're still outnumbered, and—" he took a second shot. This one went wide, hitting the ground near Ahsoka's feet.

Ahsoka realized the intention of his new aim too late. The metal cylinder on the ground next to her exploded, the crystal within rupturing in a roaring flash of yellow light. The yellow lightsaber that had served her so well since Mortis was now useless.

The explosion was small, harmless, but the roaring in her montrals wouldn't stop, the sound growing and building and hammering on her psyche. And then it stopped. Everything stopped. There was no sound.

The distraction was costly. Boba slammed his head backwards, breaking Ahsoka's nose. He managed to squirm out of her grasp, but he had Ahsoka's attention now. While he struggled to get to his feet, Ahsoka's focused her strength once again and struck. Her fist was guided to his jetpack, and while she felt her middle finger break from the impact, the jetpack ignited, terribly burning Ahsoka's legs, but shooting Fett into the sky, away from her.

"That's another bounty hunter out of the fight, at least for the moment," Ahsoka thought, ignoring her compounding injuries, quickly rolling to dodge Bane and C-21's renewed laser fire, and to put out her flaming leggings. "I need a weapon."

Ventress's lightsaber laid next to her unmoving body.

Focus.

Ahsoka scrambled to her knees, ignoring the fresh wave of pain from her burnt legs, and reached out with the Force.

Her old green lightsaber launched into the air, ready to protect her once again.

Bossk caught it. With a hissing grunt and a twist of his powerful arms, he snapped her first lightsaber in two.

Ahsoka's heart sank. Her adrenaline abandoned her. All her pain and exhaustion seemed to crash down upon her at once. It was all she could do to not pass out. She would die here, and she'd done nothing to save Asajj.

Cad Bane sauntered up to her. He aimed his pistol between Ahsoka's weary eyes. She realized he was talking, even if she wasn't hearing.

Staring down death, with no energy for escape or hope of rescue, the most absurd thought entered her mind. She'd seen so many deaths preceded by a clever one-liner or witty quip, but what did it matter at all to the person dying? She found a strange solace that her last thoughts wouldn't be of her killer's choosing.

With an intense shock, she realized that these were her last thoughts. She closed her eyes, not wanting Cad's ugly sneer to be her last sight. She'd always wondered how it might end, hoped that the last action her brain would perform would be to call forth the memory of mentors and masters, pupils and padawans, friends a loved ones, all the greatest things in her life so she could become one with the Force with that satisfaction to guide her.

Instead her mind went to Ventress, wondered what she'd be like if her life had taken another path. She was about Anakin's age; perhaps they would have been friends. Rivals, more likely. The ridiculous image of Asajj in Jedi robes, with a full head of carefully arranged hair swam to the fore of her mind. Despite everything, she felt a small bubble of laughter escape her lips, with an aftertaste of longing and regret.

Ahsoka was still alive. Her strange last thoughts should have been cut short several seconds ago. Curiosity and confusion dragged her eyes open.

Cad Bane had dropped his pistol, was staring at his own chest. A strange, familiar glow pulsed at the surface of Cad's sternum. Then a second bolt found a home in his heart, and a third in his gut. He fell to the ground, dead red eyes staring at his fallen blaster.

Ahsoka turned a bleary eye towards the blast's source on the nearest rooftop. A figure stood there in shiny white armor. Clone armor. Holding a standard DC-15A blaster rifle. Rex? Fives? No, this trooper was skinnier than any of her friends in the 501st.

While Ahsoka looked on, the trooper leapt from the high ground, delivering a flying stomp to C-21 Highsinger's shoulders. The trooper maintained his balance as the droid fell flat on his back, and rapidly unloaded a barrage of shots into the droid until it stopped moving.

Bossk rushed towards the new combatant, weapon forgotten, claws on display. Sugi's stunner caught him full in the back, and the Trandoshan collapsed face-first into the cobbled stone.

Sugi rushed towards Ahsoka, concern and compassion written across her face. She was saying something, but Ahsoka couldn't hear.

The trooper waved his hand and Sugi's weapon twisted in her hand and fired a stunning blast into her own chest. She dropped to the pavement as though dead.

Ahsoka turned to the trooper with new suspicion.

"Clone troopers can't use the Force. Who are you?" Ahsoka asked.

The Mirialan removed her helmet.

Barriss.

The dam Ahsoka had built up around her emotions was weakened by her exhaustion, pain, and desperation. The sight of her old friend reinforced it as never before. She would not show this terrorist how much her betrayal had hurt and confused her. When this disgusting bitch looked on Ahsoka, she would see a Jedi that all the Order should be proud of.

Ahsoka struggled to her feet. Her burns didn't matter. She straightened her shoulders. The blaster wound would heal. She looked down her broken nose at the moss-faced backstabber disgracing the clone uniform.

"What is it that you want, Offee."

Shame crossed Barriss's face. Appropriate. And something like hope as well. Unacceptable. Words spilled from Barriss's lips. Ahsoka had no talent for lip reading, but suspected that she saw the word "sorry" leave her hateful lips. This was some kind of apology, prolonged by Barriss's inability to get to the point. Eventually her lips quit moving, her eyes searching Ahsoka for a reaction.

"…Is that all?" Ahsoka said, striving to fill each vowel with as much disdain as possible, each word with just as much righteousness. "You shouldn't have bothered. I've moved on. The galaxy has moved on. Not that you're likely to make it far before you're arrested anyways. You never were much of a Jedi."

Every word was a lie, but it felt good to hurt her. And judging by her despicable face, Ahsoka's words did still mean something to her.

Barriss's lips began moving again, but then stopped, new suspicion crossing her face. Barriss's eyes darted towards Ahsoka's montrals. Ahsoka wondered if the damage done to them was visible. Whether that was the case or not, Barriss seemed to have jumped to the right conclusion. She holstered her stolen rifle and began waving her arms and fingers around.

Of course she knew sign language. Not that it was of any help, Ahsoka couldn't sign the alphabet.

Barriss seemed to recognize this and changed tact. She waved her hand, pulled the dirt from between the cobblestones to write words in the air. "I can fix you." She removed the trooper gauntlets from her hands and began advancing upon Ahsoka.

Barriss had always been especially talented at using the force for healing; a natural consequence of training under Master Luminara. But the thought of owing Barriss anything, of allowing her to repay the wrongs she'd dealt Ahsoka in any way repulsed the Togruta in every part of her being.

"Get away from me!" Tano snarled.

Barriss sighed, turning away. She didn't speak any more, but the dirt twisted in the air, forming new words, "The one with the jetpack will return. I'll let you save yourself. But I am, truly, sorry."

Ahsoka had no time for her apologies, but the words about Boba reminded her of all that had happened before the Mirialan's appearance, of Ventress.

"…Wait." Ahsoka said, voice cracking, hating her own desperation. "If you mean what you said. If you really mean to make things right, then heal her." Ahsoka gestured feebly to Ventress's unmoving body. She was too shattered to even sense if her partner was still alive, but she had no hope of saving anyone in her condition. Many people had died for her pride. Ventress wouldn't be one of them.

Barriss turned back to look at Ahsoka, and the togruta was startled to see tears slipping down her cheeks. But Barriss's lips were curled in disdain. She spoke to Ahsoka, not bothering to translate herself in any way. She knelt next to Asajj.

For a moment, the cobbled street was perfectly silent.

Ahsoka's strength met its limit, and she collapsed to the ground. She clawed ahold of consciousness, watched Barriss work on her partner.

Barriss stood, raised more dirt words into the air. "She'll live. I sent you to death undeserved, and now I've saved her life undeserved. We're even. Farewell, Ahsoka Tano." Barriss leapt to the nearest rooftop where a shadowy silhouette waited. A pair of lightsabers hung from the unknown figures dark robes, face obscured by a deep hood. The pair of them disappeared from sight.

Ahsoka begged the Force for just a bit more strength.

She never remembered the hour after that. Not the torturous crawl to Ventress's body, nor her halting shuffle as she carried her back to the _Banshee_. Not the haphazard flight preparation, nor the _Slave I_ 's sudden attack.

Not her desperate maneuvering of the unfamiliar controls.

Not the blind jump to hyperspace.


	13. Purpose

**Purpose**

Ahsoka's recording fell silent for a moment before resuming. "I'm taking…let's say a nine hour break. I need sleep. If you don't, sleep anyways. I have a lot left to say, and it's important that someone hears it."

The hologram of their fallen mentor flickered out, but the holocron still issued sporadic bits of noise as Ahsoka prepared for bed.

"Kanan, Ezra," Hera's voice crackled through Ezra's wrist comm. "The recon team is back. Commander Sato wants you both at the debriefing."

"Got it. We're on our way." Ezra switched off the communicator and headed to the door. "How's that for timing, eh Kanan? Ahsoka says 'take a break' and boom! There's Hera calling for us. Kanan?"

Ezra's master hadn't moved. "You go ahead. This has given me a lot to think about. I want to see what I can learn about this Asajj Ventress woman."

"Okay…" Ezra said. "But Hera sounded like this might be important."

"All the more reason for me to be absent then," Kanan said. "No one want to explain the holograms for the blind man."

"Kanan, I…" Ezra opened his mouth to speak twice before turning off the lights and leaving Kanan behind.

"You're here. Good," Kanan said. "I think she just woke up. Sounded like she rolled out of her bed. Did you know that there isn't a single mention anywhere on the HoloNet of Asajj Ventress? I knew the Empire has been censoring everything to do with the Jedi for the past decade, but I would have thought they'd leave the Separatists out of it. And Ahsoka made it sound like Ventress was some kind of big shot war criminal or something. You'd think that would play into their story about all the Jedi being power-hungry. So they've got to be hiding something important with her."

Ezra closed the door behind himself. "The recon mission was a failure. Thanks for asking. Commander Sato says—"

"Shh! Shh. Shh." Kanan said, bent over the holocron, one ear bent towards the table. "I think she just turned on the shower. It must be, it definitely sounds like—"

"Are you serious? Do you even care about the Rebellion anymore?" Ezra demanded. "Should I tell Hera that she's Spectre-1 now?"

"If you want to, go ahead," Kanan said. "Probably more trouble than it's worth though, renaming everyone. Better to just leave the slot open until you find someone to fill the slot."

"You think we could just replace you?"

"Look at me Ezra," Kanan said. "Wait, maybe you already are. I don't know because I. Am. Blind. I can't fight like this. I can't be a fighter anymore. So I'm trying to be helpful in the only way I know how. No matter how much aid the Rebellion gets, there are still two Sith that will hold up the Empire by themselves if they have to. You remember the fight above Lothal. One fighter against our entire squadron and he made us look like children. Infants. Do you think it would be any different if we had a fleet? A fleet of fleets? And Sith always come in pairs. If we can't find a way to deal with them, then all of this, everything we've fought for will come to absolutely nothing. And if Ahsoka thinks that what she has to say is important, then what could be more important than killing the Sith? You said Ahsoka said she isn't a Jedi. Maybe she knew a stronger way to use the Force, something even stronger than the Sith."

"If Ahsoka knew a way to defeat the Sith, why did she die fighting one on Malachor?" Ezra winced at his own words, but pressed on, "I miss her too, but she wasn't perfect, she wasn't all-powerful, and neither are the Sith. They are just men, and will die like anyone else if we can get a blaster behind their back. We don't need her secrets about the Force right now, we need military advantages. And I don't need you searching for secrets, I need your ideas, your teaching. And if I can't get them from you—"

Ahsoka's form flickered into existence and began to speak without preamble, "My next memory was in the cockpit of the _Banshee_ , hurdling through hyperspace…

 **End Act I**


	14. Dazed

**Dazed**

Ahsoka found herself in the _Banshee_ 's cockpit. In the pilot's seat.

Why was she in the pilot's seat? Ventress never gave her control of the ship.

Asajj. The bounty hunter fight. The scream. Injuries.

Where is Asajj? Ahsoka strained her legs to support her weight.

Ahsoka's vision crumbled under the pounding in her temples. She sat back down.

Head injury. Concussion, probably. Which would explain the memory issues.

Ahsoka cradled her head. She remembered Barriss leaving her in the street.

Where was she now? Right, the _Banshee_ cockpit. Pilot's seat. In hyperspace.

Hyperspace. With no known destination or time of arrival.

The stars really are very beautiful seen like this. So lonely at night, but here they blend together in a gorgeous tapestry of interconnected—

Focus. She had to focus. Her memory wasn't all together right now, if she didn't focus she had no hope of doing anything.

But what was she supposed to be focusing on? It had seemed so important a moment ago.

Where was she again? The _Banshee_. Asajj must have left her in charge so she could sleep.

Why couldn't she remember? Wouldn't be a problem if her head didn't hurt so much.

The scream. The pain. And then Barriss was there.

How had she gotten there? She'd been arrested. And now she wore armor?

The Jedi would recapture her. Ahsoka wasn't sure how she felt about that.

And who was that with her? With the sun behind them, they just looked like darkness.

Dark like space. Not hyperspace like this, regular space, where the gaps between the stars were infinite and infinitesimal.

…The _Banshee_ is in hyperspace. Ahsoka was piloting the _Banshee_. She didn't know where she was going.

That isn't good. Ahsoka reached for the controls.

Her right arm wouldn't move. He left hand flared in pain as she tried to grasp the throttle.

Somehow she felt this was important. She pulled the ship out of hypserspace.

The Nav computer should have had coordinates for where they'd stopped. It did not.

The window wasn't helpful. No planet, star, or asteroid nearby.

Space seemed so dark and yet so full. Easy to forget in the core worlds just how many stars there are in the galaxy.

As the _Banshee_ listed aimlessly, Ahsoka caught sight of the galaxy's center. So far away, but still, so very beautiful. Not even Ventress could deny that.

Asajj. She'd been injured on Corellia. Had she healed at all?

Ahsoka spun her chair around and staggered towards her partner's cabin.

Why did her head hurt so much?

Ahsoka woke up lying facedown in the _Banshee_ 's main room. She climbed to her feet with care, nursing her…everything. With an exhausted sigh, she leaned against the ship's unadorned walls and took stock of her situation.

Shewas in rough shape. Ignoring the uniform soreness throughout her body from her nap on the metal floor, she'd been deafened by a Force Scream, she'd taken a blaster bolt to her right shoulder which apparently did some nerve damage, judging by her arm's continued refusal to do anything, her nose had been broken, as had a finger on her left hand, her legs were burnt so thoroughly that any movement was rather nauseating, and at some point she'd been concussed hard enough that she didn't actually remember how she'd gotten from that street in Corellia to…somewhere in space, apparently.

Her injuries didn't worry her too much. She'd learned to use the Force let her recover from most physical injuries. The nerve damage in her shoulder would be a nuisance, but pain was no stranger in her life. The concussion was rather more alarming; brain injuries are subtle things, unpredictable, and this was far from her first. She'd have to be more careful in the future. Emulate Obi-Wan a bit more than Anakin. Or better yet, find a way to stop fighting altogether.

But her brain did seem to be functioning properly now, so she'd put up with the pain for a little bit longer until she could be certain that it was her highest priority.

Ahsoka closed her eyes and exhaled. Empty the mind. She reached out and felt the living Force around her.

A couple pointless levitations later, Ahsoka felt satisfied that her connection to the Force was as healthy as she could hope for. She hoped that that would be enough to warn her if anything dangerous were to approach wherever they were in the galaxy.

Ahsoka took a couple unsteady steps before banishing her pride and pulling a loose bar to her. It was a unwieldy sort of cane, but it would get her where she needed to go.

Ahsoka did her best to stifle the renewed sense of loss as she remembered the metal she usually held. Her lightsabers had been her last real connection to the Jedi order. She idly wondered if she'd recovered their fractured remains in the time she couldn't remember.

The door to Asajj's cabin opened with a hiss. Its owner laid in her bed, dead to the world. But not quite dead.

Ahsoka set to work.

That would have to do for now. Ahsoka was confident that Asajj wasn't getting worse. The woman still held to life by a thread, but she had a strong grip.

Barriss had done good work, but incomplete; Ventress had been shot thrice, in lung, spine, and throat. Barriss had repaired the lung damage, knit the spine back together, closed the hole in her throat, saved her life, but had done nothing to heal Ventress's vocal cords. She may never speak again.

Ahsoka limped back to the ship's controls. The _Banshee_ was nearly as mangled as her owner, but she had clearly been through some kind of action between Coronet City and the hyperspace jump. Most of the damage was fairly incidental; the starboard shield generator had shut itself down, and both the dorsal tri-turret and the landing ramp were locked in position. Nothing Ahsoka couldn't fix with a bit of time and the tools on board. But the communications array and the navicomputer were completely fried; Ahsoka hadn't the faintest idea whether she was in the Galaxy's core or the furthest reaches of the Outer Rim.

By some providence of the Force, though, the ship detected a habitable planet not far off. With any amount of luck, they'd find enough civilization there to heal themselves and fix the ship.

"No, not luck," Ahsoka chided herself. "Obi-Wan would say there's no such thing. Only the Will of the Force."

The trip would take several hours. Ahsoka programmed the auto-pilot and returned to her patient. Perhaps she would have some good news when Ventress awoke.


	15. Confused

**Confused**

"Hello there."

Asajj Ventress gawked, nonplussed, at the Jedi before her. "Kenobi? What are you doing here?"

Kenobi flattened a small crease in his robes, then flashed his brilliant, irritating smile, "I was rather wondering that myself. Didn't expect to find myself here, and certainly didn't expect to find you. Where is 'here' do you think? I don't recognize this part of the temple."

"Temple? What are you blathering about Kenobi?" Asajj kept one eye on the dangerous Jedi while she scanned the fields, searching for any sign of backup. Jedi always seemed to travel in packs. "Corellia is the most force-dead planet I've ever known. Your Jedi would be fools to build a temple here."

"Goodness knows we know how to be foolish," Kenobi said, mostly to himself. Then more conversationally, "Corellia? Is that what you see? I suppose that makes sense. You are right, of course, the Jedi have never built a temple there to my knowledge; I'm still on Coruscant, as far as I can tell, but sleep can be deceptive on such trivialities."

"Sleep?" Asajj bristled, "You think I'm a dream, a creation of your mind?"

"That does seem the most likely explanation for this rendezvous," Kenobi said. "I'll admit, it is a strange dream. Much more constant than most, and rather dull; I've come to expect more action, or romance. And, forgive me, you are not the partner my mind usually conjures for either role."

"And why is it that I should believe that it is you who are dreaming?" Asajj asked, uninterested in Kenobi's ramblings. "You could just as well be a phantom of my subconscious."

"I'm afraid that's quite impossible, my dear," Kenobi said gravely. "You won't be doing much dreaming at all anymore."

"Is that so?" Asajj said, an argument in her voice, though she didn't know why she should care.

"It is." Kenobi said, head bowed, unwilling to meet Asajj's gaze. "After all, you're dead."

Asajj woke wanting to move. She couldn't say with any kind of certainty how long she'd been unconscious, but that time was passed now. Her mind was alive with questions, not least why she was bound wrist and ankle to her own bed. Her ship was running, engines producing their typical hum. Who was piloting it? And for that matter, why was she alive at all? She remembered rather distinctly being shot back on Corellia.

She reached out with the Force, trying to get a grip on her situation. She'd just located Ahsoka at the ship's helm when she felt the _Banshee_ jolt from a rougher than usual landing.

She used the Force to release her bindings, and was surprised to feel no pain as she stood and stretched. She wasn't even stiff. A smile, a genuine smile spread across her face simply from the exhilaration of...existence? For the life of her, Ventress would not have been able to explain why she had so much energy coursing through her, but she wasn't complaining.

She opened the door and found Tano on the other side.

Suddenly all of Asajj's giddiness seemed horribly out of place.

Asajj's first, ridiculous reaction was embarrassment at Tano's state of undress. The second was horror at the state of the exposed flesh. It was difficult to find a part of Tano that wasn't injured. One arm limp, the other broken. Both legs were burnt through the skin, a good amount of muscle outright destroyed. Her nose was not its usual shape at all, and a trail of dried blood fell from it over her lips and down her chin. A dark rainbow of boot-shaped bruising decorated the left side of her face and was mirrored on the left side of her rib cage.

When Asajj's gaze made it back to Tano's face, she found a frown there.

"You should be in bed. You've been injured, take the time to recover."

Asajj was flabbergasted into silence by audacity of the girl's hypocrisy. If Asajj was injured and needing recovery, then Tano was dead twice over, and she wasn't even sure what that meant. Double-dead?

Asajj opened her mouth to say as much, but nothing happened. Asajj coughed slightly, we her lips and tried speaking again.

Her voice was gone.

Panic swelled inside Asajj's head, clouding her senses and pushing all thoughts aside save one, "I can't speak!"

Her eyes bulged wide, hands flew to her throat, where a brutal scar could be felt at her larynx.

"Okay, deep breaths Ventress," Tano said, raising her broken hand in what was probably supposed to be a conciliatory manner. "A lot happened while you were out; I can explain it all, but first you need to calm down."

Asajj felt her panic turn to bewilderment into scorn into anger, where her emotions stopped. This tiny togruta had to be drowning in her pain, physically and emotionally exhausted, and still her priority was upon making sure Ventress was safe and healthy. How could she hold any anger towards such a person?

Even though the promise of explanations was appealing, Ventress shook her head. She pointed to Ahsoka, and then to the bed.

Tano's gaze softened a bit around her eyes. If she wasn't in so much pain, she might have even smiled. "I'm fine, really. I couldn't sleep now if I...oh who am I kidding. I'm pretty sure we're safe here, but I don't actually know where "here" is. I'll explain when I wake up. Just do me a favor and try to get some more rest for yourself?"

Asajj nodded, lying easily, then held up a single finger before pointing to the door to Ahsoka's cabin across the way. She hoped the message would be obvious, "You first."

Ahsoka complied, gingerly making her way into bed, carefully arranging herself to avoid aggravating any of her many injuries. Even so, she was asleep within seconds.

When Asajj sensed that her business partner was lost to the world of the wake, she set to work. Her knowledge of nightsister magicks was nowhere near as extensive as Mother Talzin, nor as powerful as Old Daka, but she knew how to siphon the water of life.

Before opening the airlock onto an unknown planet, Asajj visited the cockpit to get a read on where they were. The results were not encouraging. The planet's gravity was exceptionally strong, to such a degree that the atmosphere, while non-toxic, had mostly settled in low elevation areas. Where they had landed, there wasn't air enough to support any kind of physical labor more intense than standing and walking.

Still, good enough for what Asajj needed. She grabbed a convenient bucket, falf filled it with water, and left the ship.

They'd landed on an open plain, the horizon nearly flat, marred only by a single far-off mountain peak. Asajj walked a few hundred years away from the _Banshee_ , trailing her fingers across the tips of the tall grass. Despite the light air making her breath catch easily, and the intense gravity making the water bucket feel much heavier than it ought, Asajj couldn't help but find her task enjoyable, pleasant even. The sky was clear, the breeze was refreshing, and the bright blue star that served as sun for this planet put an ethereal tint on everything.

When she was satisfied that Tano wouldn't be harmed, Asajj tore up a few stalks of grass to make a flat surface for her water bucket.

Nightsister magick made use of the force, but in a way foreign to the Sith principles Asajj learned from Dooku and the Jedi methods Narec had taught. Nightsister magick was about disrupting and relocating balance. Take the harm from here, put it there, take the life from my enemies and put it in my allies. Actual application was rarely that simple, but the water of life was fairly straightforward.

Asajj closed her eyes, reached out, searching for the life around herself. That part was not difficult, she was surrounded by the green energy from all the wild plants. Then she focused, examined that vague green glow and looked closer, picked out the twisting, coiling, undulating strands of within that glow, and then within each of those strands, the gleaming core of life. Slowly, delicately, Ventress caressed that core, wrapped her fingers around it, held it firmly. And then she ripped it out.

Ten feet to Ventress's left, a blade of grass wilted, pale and dead.

Ventress took that core of life, brilliant and tiny, and deposited it into her bucket. Twenty seconds later, she added another.

For more than an hour, Ventress continued her task, until that green glow faded and ultimately disappeared. When she opened her eyes, a wide circle of dead grass surrounded a bucket filled nearly to the brim with her shimmering green potion, the water of life.

As she hoisted the heavy bucket back to the _Banshee_ , Asajj mused on what sort of chemical process she'd just performed. She'd been told not to try to eat plants she'd killed in this way, even if they were normally edible. Had she just torn away calories, the vitamins, and the relevant amino acids, or did life consist of something more primal. Why was there never an analysis droid about when the interesting questions came up?

Asajj was careful not to spill any of her hard-earned concoction as she crossed the field and climbed the boarding ramp. She found Tano asleep on her bunk. Asajj brushed away the awkwardness incurred from this breach of privacy (made slightly more difficult by her partner's continued near-nudity).

Asajj was on the verge of putting the water to boil and beginning the healing process when she stopped to consider. Perhaps Tano wouldn't want this kind of healing. She might find it morally objectionable, or something. She tended to be bothered by odd things. Perhaps she'd prefer the pain of waking injured to being healed in her sleep if it gave her a voice in the matter.

With nothing pressing to do, Asajj turned to her weight-set. Her head was a buzzing mess of questions that Tano would doubtless answer, but in the meantime, exercise did wonders to clear the mind.

 _Lift._

 _Lift._

Putting together the facts, there wasn't much that Ventress really needed to ask about.

 _Lift._

Tano had saved her life, that much was certain, and had suffered grievous injury for her efforts.

 _Lift._

They also weren't on Corellia, which meant that Tano had somehow gotten her from the city street ambush back to the _Banshee_.

 _Lift_.

Which she'd then flown out into space, and off to some yet-unknown planet in a very different star system.

 _Lift._

And somewhere along the way the _Banshee_ was either crashed or attacked. Maybe both.

 _Lift._

And Asajj had been out long enough to heal. She could feel a scars to prove her injuries had really happened.

 _Lift._

And she'd had help healing. Her spine wasn't severed, her lungs were doing fine work, even on this planet.

 _Lift._

But her throat was another story. There was no pain there, but neither was there any sounds.

 _Lift._

Even trying to grunt or growl as she fought against the weights in her hands proved impossible.

 _Lift._

Asajj set the weights aside, trying to process her tangled emotions. There was some fresh anger towards Fett and his ilk. Not for what they'd done to her, but for what they'd done to Tano. Asajj had betrayed Fett, revenge was natural and expected. Ahsoka didn't deserve what they'd done to her.

That anger led to her gratitude towards Tano. The last they'd spoken before Asajj had passed out drinking the night before, the girl had spoken of her fear that they were beginning to resemble one another, of their shared hatred for who Ventress was and had been. And then she'd saved Asajj's life. She'd arrived without being alerted or asked, and then put herself in harm's way to save Asajj. So yes, gratitude.

But not just gratitude. Affection? Asajj didn't want to stay near Tano just to be there the next time danger struck so she could return the favor, balance the scales, erase her debt. She wanted Ahsoka around because she was probably the one person the galaxy who would have even tried to save her. She cared about Ahsoka because Ahsoka cared about her. When she thought about it that way, it was really pretty pathetic. 'Asajj Ventress: force user, war hero, assassin, and willing to be your friend if you can put up with her.'

Asajj put her self-flagellation on hold and backed up through her own thoughts. Something in there was pretty important and she'd just kept going.

She cared about Ahsoka.

No. No no no no no. No, no. Ugh, no. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Shit.

Ventress got into a new position and started lifting again.

By the time she was properly exhausted, there was no denial left. Asajj had broken her promises to herself, opened herself up to the inevitable pain of loss, abandonment, or betrayal.

Or happiness.

Was that hope? Asajj couldn't be quite sure, it had been so long since she'd held a real hope that she wasn't ashamed of. For so long, she'd been driven by anger, greed, desperation, the satisfaction of revenge. It was all reactive, with nothing past the end. The idea of having a real friend, not an ally or an asset working towards a shared cause, but some whose presence was genuinely enjoyable, who she could spend time with, find some lasting shred of happiness with? It was thrilling. It was terrifying. And it was more than she could process right now.

Asajj's heart fell a little when she realized that she wouldn't be able to talk to Ahsoka about this situation. Not without jumping through some hoops. Asajj had never been the most chatty of individuals, but the loss of her voice was hitting her harder than she'd have imagined. The cruelty of the Force would ensure that it was only now that she had someone who would listen to her, to whom she wanted to speak, that she lost her voice.

Spitting in the face of the Force's decrees, Asajj set about making herself a new voice using spare parts from around the ship.


	16. Visitation

**Visitation**

Ahsoka woke too exhausted to catalogue all of her pain. She contemplated not opening her eyes, rolling over (figuratively, her broken ribs made any movement a bad idea) and embracing the aspirin of sleep. Anakin always went soft on her when she was recovering from battle. Sometimes Tup would cook her sweets if she stayed in bed long enough.

Reality rushed in on Ahsoka, reminding her of where she was, what had happened. For a moment, it felt like she had lost her friends and allies all over again. For the first time, Ahsoka let herself cry. For the choices she'd made, for the injustices she'd suffered, for the friends she'd lost and for those she'd abandoned, for everything that was and everything that could have been, Ahsoka wept.

The next time she woke, Ahsoka's cheeks were salt-crusted from dried tears, but she felt brave enough to face the world once again. Among his other good points, Merth was right that no matter how she'd spent her first seventeen years, she still had four times that many ahead of her if she didn't get herself killed first.

Upon opening her eyes, Ahsoka found Ventress sitting at her bedside. A mix of warm emotions swirled within the young Togruta's chest. Despite everything she'd lost, she'd found a way to save something.

Ventress had burst into motion, showing off a tangled array of wires and dangling electronics. She was becoming increasingly agitated as she typed feverishly into a small mobile keyboard, making numerous adjustments and looking at Ahsoka with a mixture of nerves, confusion, and anticipation.

Understanding bloomed in Ahsoka when she caught sight of an old droid audio processor. With her own vocal cords severed, Ventress had constructed a replacement so they could converse. It spoke to Ahsoka's emotional state that such a small thing was able to rouse feelings of affection for her partner.

"I'm sorry, but I won't be able to hear you. Back on Corellia, when you were shot, you...screamed. I've been within feet of massive explosions, I know loud sounds. This was different; it had to have been some kind of force ability. I haven't been able to hear since." Anticipating Ventress' response, Ahsoka added, "It wasn't your fault, you weren't in control. We never would have made it off of that street if you hadn't screamed; besides deafening me, your scream knocked two of the hunters out, scared one of them off, and I think it gave one of them a heart attack. Tactically speaking, it was a brilliant move."

Ahsoka's attempt at bright and cheery fell on deaf...it wasn't working. Ventress looked heartbroken, devastated.

"Look, it happened." Ahsoka said. "Can't change the past. So we keep moving. Remember what you said, in the diner back on Coruscant? 'None of this. No whining about how you were betrayed, no complaining about how the Jedi abandoned you. Everyone has a sob story.' And you know what?" Ahsoka took a deep breath, and struggled to sit up, "I think that's exactly what I needed to hear right then, but I don't know if that's what you need right now. But for what it's worth, I don't hold you responsible, I don't blame you, and knowing how things turned out, I'd go back and do it all again in a heartbeat: your life is totally worth my hearing."

Ahsoka's ribs screamed in pain as Asajj seized her in a sudden grapple. The Dathomiri woman had released her before Ahsoka realized that it was a hug.

Ventress refused to meet her eyes. She blinked rapidly, refusing to let the slight wetness spill from her eyes.

Ahsoka coughed slightly, winced at the resultant spike of pain, and did her best to change the subject, "I promised to explain how we got here, if you'd like?"

Still staring determinedly at something on the floor at the foot of Ahsoka's bed, Ventress shook her head. She took a deep breath and faced Ahsoka, trying to mime what she wanted to say aloud.

Ahsoka shook her head, "Here," she said, "Try this." Using the Force, she tried to duplicate Offee's trick, floating the grime and dirt in her room into letters in the air. The maneuver proved surprisingly tricky, requiring more concentration and delicacy than Ahsoka could muster.

Despite her failure, Ventress seemed inspired, rushing off and returning five minutes later with a pan full of packed dirt and a stick to carve letters into the surface.

"Why...haven't...you...healed...yourself?" Ahsoka read each word as Ventress wrote it.

Ahsoka couldn't help but find Asajj's tiny jubilant celebration at finding her voice to be adorable, an adjective she never would have associated with her partner even a week ago.

"I will try, but I received most of my training from Anakin and Obi-Wan. I'm good at killing things, better at not being killed, but only a novice at healing. I'll try, but most of me will just take time to fix."

Ventress stared at Ahsoka with an expression somewhere between indignation and disbelief. She slapped her stick down in her dirt-pan, then turned in her seat and faced directly away from Ahsoka.

Then she whipped her shirt off.

"Um...Ventress," Ahsoka said, doing her best to look anywhere but at the tightly muscled exposed gray skin in front of her. Despite herself, Ahsoka noted that Ventress didn't wear any kind of undershirt. Ahsoka's sudden nerves made her babble. "I know I'm mostly naked and you're in my bedroom, but I've never considered thinking about girls that way, never mind you in particular, and even if I was into it, I don't want my first time to be while I'm too injured to enjoy anything."

Ventress looked back over her shoulder with a very "her" sort of expression, all scorn and annoyance. She reached behind her back and drew Ahsoka's attention to two circular scars that stood out among the long-healed remnants of welts, cuts, and burns, one just below her left shoulder blade, the other at the base of her spine.

Where she'd been shot.

"Okay, I get it, you can put your shirt back on." Ahsoka said. Once Ventress had complied and turned back to continue their one-voiced conversation, Ahsoka continued, "You've missed a lot while you were out. After you screamed, I still had to deal with Bossk, Highsinger, Bane, and Fett. I managed to get Fett out of the fight, but the other three pinned me down. Most of this," Ahsoka used her working left hand to gesture vaguely to her many injuries, "had been done by then, so I knew I wasn't going to be able to fight my way out."

Ahsoka hesitated too long before continuing. She knew that Ventress noticed, but hoped she'd escape discussing Barriss, "Someone in clone armor showed up out of nowhere, killed Bane and Highsinger, stunned Bossk, healed you, and left. I didn't recognize the armor. Next thing I knew, I was in the _Banshee_ , in hyperspace. I hit the brakes, found you in your bed. I'm pretty sure I took a concussion somewhere along the way; it'd explain the memory loss."

Ventress wasn't fooled. She picked up her stick and began her slow communicative process.

"You...lie," Ahsoka read aloud. "That's….okay. Trust...you. I...can...heal...you. You can heal? Where did you learn to do that?"

Ventress wrote one word, 'Talzin.' She revealed a bucket of ominous green sludge. Some of Ahsoka's apprehension at that answer must have shown through her face, as Ventress went on to write, 'Trust me?'

Ahsoka stifled a dozen questions and looked at Asajj. Her expression was open and honest, vulnerable and pleading, second-hand pain and concern. It answered all her questions before she could ask them. Ahsoka nodded.

Asajj nodded in return, picking up her pen once more, 'Will hurt.' 'Relax.'

Ahsoka leaned back, gingerly settled herself upon her skinny pillow, and exhaled.

When she breathed in, there was a strange scent in the air.

Asajj disappeared. The _Banshee_ disappeared. The last fourteen years and all their memories and lessons disappeared. Ahsoka was a babe, living in a memory her mind didn't even know to catalogue. But her emotions on this day, joy and love and security and comfort, looking up into the eyes of the teenage togrutan boy who held her were stronger than any other she felt in the years since.

Her emotions changed in time with her body. She could stand now, petrified with fear and horror as she eavesdropped at the door and heard the masked monster without eyes convince her parents to abandon her, to send her with this monster to a faraway world.

The scene changed, heart and mind alight with wonder as she first climbed the steps of the Jedi Temple.

Delight for her first deliberate use of the Force.

Pride in igniting her lightsaber for the first time.

Disgust at the smell of Rotta the Hutt.

Shame at leading a squadron of clones to their deaths.

Fury at the padawan-hunting Trandoshans.

And then she was on trial, Chancellor Palpatine ready to condemn her to death, when Barriss arrived. A part of Ahsoka far outside of herself screamed in terror at what she knew was to come, begged Ventress and waters of life to end this memory, to go to any other memory, to return to Mortis and die at the Son's hand rather than go through that betrayal again.

Every other scene had built Ahsoka into the person she was, defined her by the power of the emotions evoked. But in that courtroom, for the second time, Ahsoka felt nothing. As her guts, mind, and heart were scraped from within herself, leaving her empty, hollow, Ahsoka felt nothing. Forgot how to feel.

But the waters had not yet run their course, and the scene changed again.

The last words of the Jedi Council.

Her last conversation with Anakin.

The negotiation in the diner.

The conversation with Merth.

And then the street on Corellia, that desperation. That fear. That rage.

Ahsoka woke from her visions with bared teeth, wide eyes, and wet cheeks. She wondered for a wild moment how long she'd spend in this moment before her emotionally overwrought mind was whisked off to another moment of bliss or torment. Then her rationality kicked in: reliving those memories must be a side effect of Asajj's medicine.

Asajj.

Medicine.

Ahsoka bolted upright in bed. She saw Asajj just outside the room, putting a cover on her bucket of goo, but for the moment, Ahsoka wasn't interested. Sitting up hadn't hurt. She gingerly felt her ribs and found them whole. Prodding her (now heavily scarred) thighs proved the muscles regrown, their shape restored. Some stretching proved her right arm functional once more, if stiff from disuse.

Excitement at Asajj's success overwhelming her, Ahsoka clapped her hands for joy and called out to her partner.

Ahsoka couldn't hear it.

With dawning disappointment, Ahsoka reached up to caress her montrals. They were splintered, pockmarked, and...long. Too long. Judging by them alone, Ahsoka couldn't help but feel she'd aged five years in the past five minutes.

"Asajj...not to sound ungrateful, but what did you do to me?"

Asajj returned to her bedside, got as far as picking up her pen and dirt, before being interrupted. Something was banging against the outside of the ship.

Ahsoka hopped to her feet, eliciting an endearing look of concern from Asajj. They both jumped slightly when a small stone knocked against the _Banshee's_ windshield.

Standing in front of the ship, silhouetted by the setting sun, was a woman.

While she and Asajj stood together behind the pilot seat, separately wondering how to deal with this situation, a second voice awakened within Ahsoka's mind, a stream of thoughts not her own. She was reminded forcibly of her childhood training with Master Yoda, him performing a Jedi mind trick on each youngling in turn, so they could learn to recognize and resist its compulsive power. Yet it was different; there was no command, no grasp for control, just words, spoken in a voice Ahsoka had never heard, gentle as the morning dove, firm as...Ahsoka had no time for metaphor, opting instead to listen to what the voice was saying.

"Be warned. You are trespassing upon Miraluka. Hostile actions will be met with violent repercussions. Leave now."

Ahsoka turn to look at Asajj, "Are you hearing this?"

Asajj nodded.

"Think we should talk with her?"

Asajj nodded.

Ahsoka touched her hip, looking for the reassuring presence of her lightsaber, and found bare skin instead. "I should probably put some clothes on first."

Asajj nodded.

Properly dressed, with the _Banshee_ 's flood lights holding back the young darkness, Ahsoka and Asajj disembarked.

The Miralukan woman was well past middle-age, but stood with her back straight and head held high. Her clothing seemed comfort-focused, light in accordance with the mild weather, lacked any obvious pattern, and was composed of several non-complementary colors.

She also seemed to be blind, whether by choice or chance; a thick fold of cloth was tied about her head, completely hiding her eyes.

The woman's lips parted, began speaking. Ahsoka looked to Asajj, who presumably could hear what the woman was saying, but lacked any means to express herself. Ahsoka raised a hand to stop her and explain the situation, only to realize that the blind woman would see the gesture.

Ahsoka buried her face in her hands. Three women, one deaf, one blind, one mute. She felt like she was in the setup to one of Master Vos's terrible jokes. Or perhaps she was the punchline, she did almost feel like laughing.

"Sorry for interrupting, but this conversation isn't going to go anywhere like this. I'm recently deaf, she's recently mute. We're still working out how to communicate with each other. But I promise, our being here is an accident; we mean no harm at all to you or your people. But be warned, my companion and I are both accomplished warriors. Do not mistake our kindness for weakness."

The Miralukan woman began speaking again. Ahsoka guessed she was asking some manner of yes-or-no question, given Asajj's response was to nod, rather pointlessly.

Feeling rather foolish that she hadn't realized it earlier, Ahsoka recognized that it wasn't pointless, "I don't know what you asked, but my companion is indicating that the answer is 'yes.'"

This exceptionally roundabout and limited method of conversing and interrogating continued for a short while, Ahsoka supplying a second yes, three no', a yes, a no, and one final yes.

And then the woman's voice bloomed into life within Ahsoka's mind once again, "Your companion thinks it more convenient if she is left out of the proceedings, and that I should speak directly with you, in this manner. Are you amenable to this change?"

Ahsoka cast a questioning eye upon Asajj, checking that she was actually comfortable letting Ahsoka speak for them both.

Asajj replied to her gaze with a slow, deliberate nod.

Wondering if Asajj could read her face well enough to answer the right question, Ahsoka spoke to the Miralukan woman, "Is this technique only useful for communication? You aren't reading my memories or manipulating my thoughts, are you?"

"I am not," she bellowed within Ahsoka's mind, "You claim to come in peace, and I have no reason to suspect otherwise."

"Okay, do you have to be so loud?" Ahsoka asked. "I don't know how what you're doing works, if it's technology, the force, or something else, but if you can turn the volume down, that would be nice."

The next words in Ahsoka's head were quieter, gentler, and much more pleasant, "It is an ability I've earned from the Force. You are sensitive to its whims? Our people teach that it is rare for those who cross the stars to hear the hymns of reality."

"My name is Ahsoka Tano. I was trained as a Jedi. My...friend is Asajj Ventress. She was trained by the Sith. Which are you? Do you follow the light, or the darkness?"

"A complicated question, one best saved for another time." Ahsoka noticed, with gratitude, that she was speaking physically in time with her mental communication, so even though Asajj couldn't contribute to the conversation, she could nevertheless bear witness. "Why have you come to our home? My ancestors went to great lengths to purge all memory of this place from the rest of the galaxy; how is it that you have come to know of us?"

"We didn't; we don't. Our ship was damaged, and our nav computer isn't working. I honestly don't know where we are, nor what people you claim as yours."

"Again, questions for another time, or perhaps not at all. You are not of our people, and thus are not welcome here. We mean you no harm, and will supply you with any food or other resources you may require for your trip, but you must leave our planet, and soon."

Ahsoka shook her head, realized the futility of the motion, and voiced her complaint, "Our ship is badly damaged, and repairs take time. We cannot leave as we are now."

"You can, and must," the Miralukan envoy was adamant. "You did not crash here; you said it was merely your navigation that was damaged. You can still fly, and may wander the stars as you will. If you yet remain in seven days time, you will find that my people can be dangerous as well. We do not harbor outsiders."

"Then you doom us to die," Ahsoka said, trying not to sound desperate, despite a part of her knowing that additional desperation may well make her argument more convincing. "Why the hatred of outsiders? What have we done to you?"

To Ahsoka's shock, the Miralukan gave her a straight answer, "Our people retreated from the stars as they know nothing but war. Our people have found a way to live without it. We've come to know the Force in truth, we've learned to climb the mountain," she motioned to the peak piercing the horizon. "You come to our home and immediately boast of your skill in war, hoping to manipulate me with arguments made with closed fists. I would not have you influence my children or their future."

Ahsoka tried to do a pulse check, delaying her response until she could focus hard enough to hear her own pulse. Her current hearing limitations just left her feeling foolish. "The Jedi ways have kept the galaxy from open war for thousands of years. They were doing something very right for a long time. They were the keepers of the peace. But I think...I think this recent war means that they failed, somehow. Something was lost, they forgot something, or found something which should have been hidden. I'm not here to recruit you for our wars, or to corrupt your children. I left the Jedi so I could learn. I and my friend have done much to educate each-other, but we are still lost. Our arrival was an accident, but I think the Force guided us here, to learn from you."

She hadn't planned to say that, and her mind told her they were regrettable; she knew next to nothing of this blind woman, of her capabilities, her methods, if anything she'd said was actually true. But even so, that space right in front of her spine that Anakin had taught her to trust said that this instinct was a good one.

Ahsoka turned to Asajj, searching her face for a reaction. She received several: shock, disbelief, hurt, disappointment, consideration, and exasperation before Asajj hitched her favorite sardonic scowl into position and gave a noncommittal shrug. Ahsoka yearned to step outside of time for a moment, to speak with her partner, assure her of how thankful she was for her lessons, how dedicated she was to staying with her and figuring out the galaxy together.

But the Miraluka was still there, and she was not waiting, "I wish I could believe what you say, but I will not ignore your initial hostility. Words cannot overwrite words."

"But actions can," Ahsoka said. That response came quickly, perhaps it came from an early Jedi lesson. Something on mediation. It didn't matter right now. "What can I do to prove I'm telling the truth. We. What can we do? To prove our earnestness?"

This seemed to take the Miralukan emmisary aback. She mulled over the possibilities before giving her answer. "The mountain is a vergence of the Force. It will test you. If it finds you unworthy, you will break upon it. If you are weak, it will break you. You will find yourself upon those slopes, or you will lose yourself forever. Claim a stone from the peak, return, and we will open our doors to you."

Ahsoka checked with her partner before making a reply. Asajj looked confident, condescending, and eager for a challenge. Ahsoka wished for that self-assuredness right now. She'd only heard the word 'vergence' in relation to Mortis, and she did not know if she could survive a trial on that scale again.

Asajj snapped her fingers in front of Ahsoka's face. Her hands made two sharp motions which Ahsoka could translate readily enough, "None of this."

"Alright," she found herself saying. "We'll climb your mountain. Be prepared for our return."

The Emissary betrayed her shock for only a moment before restoring calm indifference to her face. "You're either greater fools than I imagined, or I have misjudged you entirely. Do not leave yet, the trip is perilous. Wait until tomorrow and I shall bring you supplies for the journey. Wait until the day after, and I'll teach you to speak as I do."

"You mean, in our heads?" Ahsoka asked, excited. "You'd do that for us?"

"It seems I must now." The emissary was amused by the Togrutan's enthusiasm. "Why I am so generous, even I do not know. Perhaps it is time for me to return to the mount myself. It is not a difficult skill, if your are as powerful as you claim."

Asajj outright smirked in reply, then turned on her heal and returned to the _Banshee_.

Ahsoka gave a quick, "Goodbye," and followed after.


	17. The Climb

**The Climb**

"Kenobi."

"Miss Ventress. I'm glad we have this opportunity. I wasted our last time together, and I was afraid I wouldn't have time to rectify my mistake."

Asajj's dream had only just begun, and already it had begun to irritate her. "You can tell I'm not dead. Congratulations."

"No, I'm quite certain you are. Don't fret, it is not the end. I suspect whatever comes next for you will prove a new adventure, one where you might make the right decisions."

After weeks with Ahsoka, Asajj had nearly forgotten why she so despised speaking with Jedi. On some level, she was grateful for the reminder. On most levels, she was just annoyed.

"Charming as I've ever known you to be, Kenobi," she sneered. "Just once, I'd like-"

Kenobi interrupted, "I wanted to say I'm sorry. To you. For everything."

For all his inconsequential niceties and constant meaningless apologetic platitudes, there was something so genuine and agonizingly honest in dream-Kenobi's words that Asajj was utterly taken aback. She turned away before speaking, "What have you done worth apologizing for? We were on opposite sides of a war. We fought. I lost. You even gave me my freedom after Maul. If all you've done is annoy me with your child-like taunts, consider yourself forgiven, and stay out of my dreams."

"No, Ventress. I'm apologizing for everything before that. For not finding you earlier. All the pain in your life is our fault. You could have made a wonderful Jedi."

Ventress woke in a rage, wishing she could scream. How dare he! How dare he take responsibility for her life! As if she hadn't chosen anger, hatred, and revenge. As if she didn't choose Dooku. And Talzin. And Savage.

As if all the pain in her life wasn't her own fault.

Asajj left her room and came upon an oblivious Ahsoka preparing for their departure. The food the Miralukan woman had brought them was both nutritious and palatable, but unsuitable for transportation. Ahsoka was using the limited tools in the kitchen to...do something to it. After a few moments study, Asajj decided that she was dehydrating it. A few moments later, she decided she didn't much care.

Asajj reached out with her mind the way that the Miralukan woman had taught her yesterday, caressing the thoughts surrounding Ahsoka, projecting her words upon it, "How long until we are ready?"

Ahsoka cussed. And cussed rather well, if Asajj were to rate it. Crude, yet creative. "Don't sneak up on me like that!" she pleaded as she picked up the scattered food.

Asajj rolled her eyes and spoke again into Ahsoka's mind, "I wasn't sneaking, you're deaf."

"I don't need my hearing to sense my surroundings. The Force is my ally." Ahsoka had the decency to smirk at herself. Asajj liked her more when she didn't take herself so seriously. "If I didn't sense you, it's because you were sneaking."

"Sure. Fine. I was sneaking. You caught me. What happens to people when they die?"

Asajj hadn't meant to ask it, the question just slipped out of her mouth when she wasn't paying attention. Now that it was out in the open though, she didn't bother to hide her interest in Ahsoka's answer.

An answer that wasn't immediately forthcoming, "Where did that come from? Why the sudden interest?"

Asajj shrugged, "Had a weird dream, got me thinking. I'm curious what the Jedi have to say about it."

Ahsoka again didn't respond with the speed or content Asajj desired, "Wrap up the blankets would you? The mountain might take more than one day to climb, and it might be cold."

Asajj didn't intrude upon Ahsoka's mind. She just glared.

"I'm not evading the question, I'm trying to get my thoughts in order," Ahsoka explained. "That's a big question to just spring on me, and I want to answer it properly."

"Don't," Asajj pushed into her mind. "I don't want the Kenobi-answer or the Skywalker-answer. I want to hear what you think. If the words don't come out right, correct yourself. But every time you delay and think before saying anything makes me think you're telling me what I want to hear, or what you want me to hear, instead of the truth."

Ahsoka considered Asajj for a moment. She acquiesced with a tiny nod, "It was actually before I'd ever met Masters Anakin or Obi-Wan that one of my peers asked that question. We were in Yoda's class, and he said that life is eternal, that there is no death, just a change in the form life takes. He called us 'luminous beings,' each of us a great gathering of infinitely many points of light. When we die, that light is scattered, absorbed back into the force, cast across the universe, until it converges into new life.

"Might be true," Ahsoka continued, "Yoda is powerful enough to sense things we can't. But I never really bought the whole 'there is no death, there is only the force' line. Once I die, I, Ahsoka Tano, my identity, will be lost forever. There will never be anything in the universe that thinks, feels, acts, and remembers the way that I do. I like being me. So I try to avoid death."

Asajj would have laughed if she could. "You avoid death? You, who went blade to blade with General Grievous, who picked a fight with nine of the deadliest bounty hunters in the galaxy, who picked me as a business partner, you try to avoid death?"

Ahsoka shrugged, "I try to avoid the death of me. I'm the sort of person who would do all those things. If I didn't do those things, then I'd already be dead."

Asajj shook her head at her partner's odd logic, and contented herself with rolling up the blankets.

The journey across the grasslands towards the mountain was quiet. Even peaceful. A breeze too faint to feel coaxed the light grasses into simple dances.

Yet the mountain loomed, dark and ominous even under the brilliant blue of the morning sun.

"What about you?" Ahsoka asked, as if their last conversation had ended seconds ago, rather than hours.

"What about me?" Asajj thought aloud.

"What do you think happens to us after we die?"

"For you, no idea." Asajj made an effort to answer without preamble, without thinking too much, since she just lectured Ahsoka on it earlier. "Probably whatever your Yoda said. Can't figure out grammar, but he knows the force, I have the humiliating memories to prove it."

"You fought with Master Yoda?" Ahsoka stopped to stare at Asajj, an uncomfortable amount of awe seeping into her voice. "And you're alive?"

Asajj stepped past Ahsoka, "'Fighting' is generous. And wrong. He ripped the sabers from my hand the second I thought to attack. And then he gave them back, just to make sure the message sank in, but that's besides the point. If he says Jedi shatter into beams of Force-light when they die, I won't argue with him. But he doesn't know the nightsisters and their ways.

"Long ago, my mother's ancestors found ways to capture a life in the moments after death, contain it, enslave it, body and spirit. The dead serve the living, that was their way. When Grievous came for us, the old magicks were invoked, and the dead rose against him. Not that it did much good; a good blaster destroys dead sinew as easily as it does the living.

"Point is, I might die halfway across the galaxy, but I'll never move on. In death, I'll be bound to serve the nightsisters who live. Body will separate from spirit, but both will serve the purposes of those who come after. And since I'm probably the last...either the magick will break with me, or I'll have a very dull eternity waiting for me."

Ahsoka didn't hide her disgust, "That sounds horrible! Sorry, I know they were your people, but who would want to spend their death like that? You signed on for this? Why?"

Asajj was grateful for the straightforward response, "Nobody signs on for it. The rituals that bound me were performed when I was very young. Might be horrible. Doesn't matter. It's reality. That's my fate."

"Fuck fate."

Asajj turned to look at Ahsoka, floored at her sudden outburst. She didn't think she'd ever heard her partner swear before, and certainly not that aggressively.

A cold fire burned behind Ahsoka's eyes. She spoke without anger, but Asajj didn't think she'd have dared disagree even if she didn't find the next words from Ahsoka's mouth to be the most wonderful thing she'd ever heard, "We'll find some way to fix that. Nothing in the future is set. Not for us. We'll go to Dathomir, study the magicks, find a ritual to undo them, or invent one for ourselves. They don't get to control you."

Ahsoka's form blurred slightly, smudged along the edges, flickering despite the steady starlight in the cloudless sky. With a stab of horror, Asajj realized that the problem wasn't with the light, or the atmosphere, or Ahsoka, but with her own eyes. They were wet. She was crying.

Asajj whipped around and stalked off towards the mountain, heart racing. A part of her mind, the one that spoke in Dooku's voice, the one she hated and strove to ignore, the one that, deep down, she trusted most, sprang to life, "You shouldn't be feeling this way. Allegiance leads to attachment, attachment to dependence, dependence to weakness. You know this to be true. You've seen it. You've felt it. The life of a Sith has no room for allies, save those of convenience, no use for love save to exploit it."

That word made Asajj lengthen her stride. Love. Did she love Ahsoka? Was she capable of love after all this time? Did she want to be? The word was an abomination in and of itself, an amalgamation of a thousand kinds of emotions expressed in a thousand more ways.

And the subject of the whirlwind of confused and terrified emotions was trailing three paces behind her. Asajj took all her questions and emotions and shoved them down, down, and away, to be examined much later if at all, and then far from anywhere Ahsoka might be able to sense her.

Emotions shelved, Asajj raised her shield of scorn, apathy, and deflection, "I've never heard you swear like that before. What, did fate bully you as a child?"

Ahsoka took her unstable emotions in stride. "Not me. Anakin. You've seen him, you've fought him. You know how powerful he is, how unrelenting, how uncompromising. That isn't just him in a fight, that's just him. Nobody, not a single Jedi works harder than Anakin. I used to think it was admirable, but now I can't help but wonder what drove him that hard, day after day, year after year. Did you know that I actually came to the Jedi Temple before Anakin did? He was born in the outer rim, wasn't identified as force sensitive until he was nine years old. Kind of like you, now that I think about it. I've been training as a Jedi a year longer than he has. Master Obi-Wan has been training almost three times as long, and the two practically fight as equals.

"There was this Jedi prophecy that said a 'chosen one' would have this great, galaxy-altering destiny, and a lot of the masters say that it's about Anakin. He says he doesn't believe it, but with a little perspective, I think it really screwed him up. Huh…" Ahsoka trailed off, mumbling.

"What was that?" Asajj asked.

"Nothing. Well," she amended, trying to be open and honest, "nothing on topic. Just something I noticed. When I originally left the temple, I told myself it was because I needed to get some perspective, look at things objectively, figure some things out. I just realized that I've done that without even trying, at least where Anakin is concerned."

"You really care that much about him, don't you?" Asajj asked, slowing enough to let Ahsoka catch up.

"He was my master, my mentor, of course I-" Ahsoka bit her sentence off, seeming to realize who was listening. "Sorry, I know things were different for you with Dooku, even if you don't like talking about-"

"Don't worry about it," Asajj said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Actually, I kind of get it; I think I feel the same way about my most recent mentor."

"You never really talk about Mother Talzin; what was she like?" Ahsoka asked.

"She was a skin-sack filled to the brim with ambition and manipulation. And she wasn't who I was talking about."

"Oh." Ahsoka looked puzzled. "Then, did you have someone teach you about bounty hunting, or…?"

"I'm talking about you, little pest."

"Oh!" Ahsoka looked thoughtful for a moment. "I think that's the nicest thing you've said to me. Thank you."

"If you ever want it to happen again, you won't make a big deal of it," Asajj said, adding some extra aloofness to her tone to hide her embarrassment. She moved the conversation along just to make sure. "So you don't think that Anakin is this 'Chosen One' even though the prophecy says so. Do you not trust prophecies at all, or do you just not think that this one is right?"

"Well, I kind of...have to believe in prophecies," Ahsoka admitted. "I made one."

"You did?"

Ahsoka nodded. "I foresaw an assassination on Senator Amidala. She died in the middle of an important speech."

"But she's alive."

Ahsoka nodded again, "After I had the prophecy, I changed the future. Stayed near the senator. Stopped the assassin. Got shot. If I hadn't had the prophecy, the prophecy would have come true. But since I had it, it wasn't. Same thing with Anakin. Maybe he's the Chosen One. Maybe he would have been if he wasn't trying so hard to be the Chosen One, but now he can't be. Maybe prophecies are a pile of poodoo and we make our future."

Asajj spent a few miles trying to wrap her head around that idea, shooting incidental questions into Ahsoka's mind from time to time. She was surprised how easy it had become to just talk with the girl. Ironic, given that she couldn't talk at all at the moment. But out here, in this sliver of the galaxy untouched by war, they weren't old enemies any more. It was almost possible to believe that the rest of the galaxy didn't exist, that all there was any more was the two of them, the grass beneath their feet, and the ever-growing mountain.

They ground beneath their feet was really rising now.

"So tell me," Asajj asked, leaning back and trying to find the peak against the mid-morning sky, "what is a 'vergence?' What is it that we're looking for on this mountain?"

Ahsoka cringed minutely at the question, "The simple version is that it's a place that's abnormally strong in the Force. Abnormal as in 'off every chart mortal minds can conceive.' The Force is generally strongest where there is the most life; city planets like Coruscant, great jungles like on Felucia, that sort of thing. Using the Force there is easier than it would be in space, or on Tatooine. Easier for powerful Force users to hide as well.

"But a Vergence is something else entirely. The amount of potential power in the air is enough to scramble a normal person's mind, but for Force users, it's something else entirely. I'd be more specific if I could, but everything I've read and heard about them and what I've seen myself says that every one is different, and often different to different people. There's no consistent answer on where they come from, what causes them to form. Most often, force users will see some kind of vision. Usually not at all dangerous, and it can actually be really helpful, if you can work out what the vision means."

"What did you see?" Asajj asked. When Ahsoka gaped at her, she went on, "You said you've seen some stuff yourself, besides what you've heard and researched. That means you've been to one of these things yourself, right?"

Ahsoka nodded reluctantly, "Yeah. I said that most reports are of people having visions. Mine...wasn't like that."

As Asajj and Ahsoka approached the mountain's base, Ahsoka spoke of her time on Mortis, of the Father, Daughter, and Son, of the Son's corrupting touch, her own death, the Daughter's sacrifice.

"And you don't think that was a vision? You say that no time passed while all this happened, not for anyone else. Was this vergence powerful enough to send you back through time, or did you somehow pass through a vergence in the dead of space, and it gave you, Kenobi, and Skywalker a shared vision?"

Ahsoka shrugged helplessly. I tried to do some research on it afterwards, but I'm a terrible scholar, and there was a war happening, and I really have no idea."

"So we'll either be facing nothing at all, or shards of the Force itself of such incomprehensible age and power that we'll be utterly helpless before its whims."

"Pretty much," Ahsoka said. "That's the essence of the Jedi code, I think. Trusting the Force is with you, letting it guide your actions."

"I'm not good with trust. Sith methods give me control. Security." Asajj argued, more for the chance to delay their task than because she really felt any loyalty to her mentor's philosophies.

"You trusted me enough to come this far without even knowing what a vergence is," Ahsoka pointed out. "There's a security in trusting that someone else knows what's going on, that they'll make the right decisions even if you can't."

"Yeah, well, you're a bad influence on me." Asajj began trudging forward, grass and dirt giving way to stone and gravel. "And look how well trusting you worked out? You've got no idea what we're facing either! How can I trust that you'll make the right decision when you don't even know the right question?"

"Because the Force will guide me." Ahsoka's satisfied smile fell. "At least, that's supposed to be the right answer. Honestly, some control right now sounds pretty good."

Silence both auditory and mental fell between the two as they made their way across the barren ground surrounding the base of the mountain. A sandstone archway stood at the tail of path that Asajj could see slithering up the mountain and out of sight. Asajj caught Ahsoka's eye, and they nodded their determination to each other. They passed under the arch.

Five steps forward revealed another world. The winds tore at their clothes, pelting their skin with dust and debris. The noonday sun was nowhere to be seen, the sky a moonless black night marred with blood-red nebula clouds. The scent of plant life, so constant across the fields was erased, replaced with a crystalline nothingness that grated on Asajj's nerves by its unrelenting nonexistence. The path and the mountain itself had changed as well, branching from the lonely mountain and straight path to a great misshapen divergence, two trails leading up two mounts which seemed to lead to a single peak.

"Seems like this vergence wants us to split up," Asajj noted. "Maybe it has different trials for each of us?"

"Seems like," Ahsoka agreed, voice raised against the wind. "Good thing we've both gotten pretty good at breaking the rules."

"You want to defy the Force itself?" Asajj asked, surprised, impressed, and a little pleased. "Weren't you saying that the Jedi way is all about trusting the Will of the Force?"

"And I've told you before, I'm no Jedi. We stick together. Bad things happen when we're alone. Got a problem with that?"

Asajj shook her head and tried to hide her smile. "So, left or right?"

The Mountain didn't give them a chance to decide. The stone split from the point where the two paths split and cracked the ground directly between Ahsoka and Asajj. As the crack grew from crevice to fissure, hot air burst from the gap in a raging torrent, pushing the women away from each other.

Reflexively, Asajj reached across the gap, grasping Ahsoka's hand as she made a mirrored gesture. The steaming air burned their joined hands, but their grip didn't slacken. Ahsoka's battle-coarse fingers tightened painfully around Asajj's hand, and for reasons Asajj wasn't sure she could explain to herself, her own hands held all the tighter as well.

Asajj tried to pull Ahsoka to her side, or to leap across the gap to join her on the other side, she wasn't entirely sure which, but the stone crumbled to dust beneath her feet. The winds from below were throwing her away from earth, so desperate were they to separate her from her partner.

The stars began winking out of the sky, and in the last seconds of light, Asajj saw Ahsoka's mouth working furiously, the three repeated words whipped out of her mouth by the furious winds before they could reach Asajj's ears.

Even so, Asajj recognized them and chanted them back into Ahsoka's mind:

Don't let go. Don't let go. Whatever happens, don't let go.

And then everything disappeared. There was no light. There was no sound. Neither smell nor taste. No sensation on her skin, even wear Asajj knew she should be able to feel the fabric of her own clothing. Even her sensations through the Force were gone, no glimpses of the future, none of Ahsoka's unreadable thoughts to communicate with.

But try though she might, Asajj could not close her hand. The Mountain had stripped her of her senses, but it hadn't been able to physically separate them. Whatever might be happening outside the void her mind had created, Ahsoka was still by her side. She hadn't let go.

Neither would Asajj.

Light appeared, from everywhere and nowhere, and Asajj found she could see her own arms, legs, and the bridge of her own nose, but Ahsoka and the mountain had disappeared. Asajj squeezed extra tight on the immovable nothingness between her fingers and felt her palm lightly crushed in return. She was still there.

There was a mirror, wider than it was tall, but still large enough to tower over Asajj. With nothing else in existence save the pressure in her hand, Asajj walked across nothing to stand before it. Within its reflected depths was an infinite blackness, and her own self, stiff, and scared.

Standing behind her was Count Dooku.

Asajj whipped around, nearly ripping her hand free from Ahsoka's grip. There was nobody behind her. The Sith of Serenno was with her only in reflection.

He was not alone. A Kel Dor, head disgustingly mishaped with bits of metal covering eyes and jaw, gender hidden by wide, loose robes, stood to Dooku's side. The same side as Asajj's tightly clenched hand.

Though she couldn't see her friend, their trial would be fought together.

"You disappoint me, Ahsoka." The Kel Dor's voice was nothing like his appearance: deep and level, if distorted slightly by whatever device masked his mouth. "We have given you so much. Everything that you are. Why have you abandoned us?"

Dooku didn't wait for silence before beginning his own tirade, "I always hoped you'd grow weary of me, try to force my hand, either to kill me or learn more from me, find the power within yourself to become a true Sith. But that was never you. You were always weak."

She hated this man. Hated his war, hated his ways, hated his cruelty, hated every moment of her life she'd spent near him. So why did it hurt so much to hear these words. She knew anything she could do that would earn his approval would be repulsive, reprehensible. So why did she want it so much?

"Nothing in you but darkness, and still you could not do what must be done. Wrath and revenge; it's all you ever were. You could never see the end of the game, the purpose of the war. Blind. Stupid. A rabid animal, only able to see what's before it. Never Sith. Never even human."

The Kel Dor hadn't stopped either, "This quest of yours is well-meaning, but hopeless. Whatever light you kindle in her is matched in equal measure by the darkness she fosters in you. And meanwhile, the galaxy is in turmoil. Persisting is selfishness. Return. Your place is here."

The Kel Dor made a motion with his hands, and Asajj felt herself jerked forward by the grip on her wrist. A snap of breaking glass cut through their words as cracks splintered out from a place right in front of the Kel Dor. The once flawless mirror was now divided, and two new figures stood reflected within the nothingness, separated from Dooku and the Keldor by the new flaws in the glass. Beside the Kel Dor stood a clone trooper with close cropped blond hair. And next to Dooku was Talzin.

"We are dead because of you girl. You family, your sisters, your mother, all dead because you couldn't kill Grievous, because you couldn't protect anyone, because you brought their fury to our door."

"The war isn't going well, Commander. Jedi aren't supposed to be able to leave the order. When you did, others followed. We clones are standing our ground as well as we can, but it was always the Jedi who brought us real victory.

The clone trooper wasn't speaking condemnations, but Asajj knew Ahsoka well enough to know the guilt he was piling upon her would be far more terrible than any of the accusations Talzin was leveling her way.

"The 501st has had the worst of it though. You always knew how to keep us smiling and fighting, no matter who fell. And a lot have fallen. Tup, Fives, don't even know what happened to Kix. And General Skywalker is only getting more reckless. I don't think we're going to win this war Commander. We're all missing you."

"But even you must know this isn't the end. We are the daughters of the night. Death is not the end for them. And I will be the end of you!" A sickly green sword materialized in her hands. With a darkly echoed scream, she thrust it toward the mirror. Talzin pressed on with all the strength she could muster, and the flaming green tip pierced through the mirror.

Asajj panicked, throwing up her free hand to push the sword back through. Eyes wide in fear, she didn't immediately notice that two more figures had joined the crowd on the far side of the mirror. There was a young Mirialan woman wearing the armor of a clone trooper. And there was Maul.

"I remember you, sister. I know what you are. I know what you did to my brother. What you made of him. What you made him do."

"You've fallen so far Ahsoka. Did you never listen to the histories I told you of? You should know what power like ours does without the Jedi code to guide it. The rest of the Order have fallen as well, but at least they're trying. But you? This kind of betrayal...could it be?"

"He's dead now, because you betrayed him. Because you weren't there to fight with us." Maul was raging, his arguments making less sense, "It should have been you! You should have been by my side! You should be with me to take revenge against my master! Instead you ally yourself with Kenobi! With Jedi filth!"

Maul lurched forward and punched the mirror. In the web of fractures around the impact, Asajj could see rotting, golden stripes overlaid with Maul's red.

"...Perhaps there really must always be a Darth Traya."

Asajj felt the hand twist in her own, and she mirrored the movement, bracing herself against nothing and force pushing the glass as hard as she could.

The glass shattered, and the vergence's illusion shattered with it. Asajj still held Ahsoka's hand. They stood at the mountain's peak, the azure sun approaching the horizon. A small pedestal of uncarved stone sat before them. And on it were two glittering kyber crystals.

Asajj looked at Ahsoka, something like triumph welling within her.

Tano wouldn't meet her eyes.

With dawning horror, Ventress understood.

 _She heard. She knows._


	18. Summit

**Summit**

Ahsoka couldn't sleep.

Their silently pitched camp was comfortable enough. The weather was mild, the temperature tolerable despite their considerable elevation. Her bedroll was warm and soft. A galaxy and more of stars shone in the sky above her. The mountain peak was still.

A few feet over, Ahsoka could see the lump of cloth and padding that hid Ventress from view. Ahsoka wondered if she was still awake. A part of her desperately wanted to ask, to say anything, to force any kind of communication open. For the few short weeks they'd been together, Ahsoka had felt for once in her life that she could be herself instead of the person her masters expected her to be. The fact that Ahsoka didn't know who "herself" really was didn't much matter, because Asajj didn't care.

No, that wasn't right. She did care. The reality was worse: she trusted. Even though Asajj couldn't know who Ahsoka was, didn't know what secrets Ahsoka was hiding, she trusted that Ahsoka knew what was right, and that Ahsoka would do it.

The vergence had stripped that trust away. It had exposed their shames, to themselves, and to each other. Trust is faith, and faith requires ignorance. Otherwise it's just logic. Now that they both had all the information, they both had math to do. Could Asajj think her right or good when she knew that Ahsoka didn't think herself either?

And what did Ahsoka think of what she'd learned about Ventress? Had she learned anything?

Ahsoka rolled over, burying her head in her pillow, and resisted the urge to scream. Why couldn't things be simple? Thoughts like that didn't make things simpler, but Ahsoka couldn't help but feel her frustration was well-earned.

Ahsoka did her best to parse through what she knew. The list wasn't long, not with a Vergence involved. For all she knew, she was still seeing only what it showed her. With a spike of annoyance, Ahsoka wondered if she'd be having episodes ten years from now and still wonder if anything was real, or if she was still trapped on this mountain, the same way she sometimes wondered if she'd ever actually escaped Mortis.

Ahsoka refused to get stuck down that train of thought again. She hoped that everything was as it seemed, and dealt with that reality. In that case, Asajj had probably seen everything in the mirror, just as Ahsoka had. But was what they had seen true, or just their own insecurities brought to life? Ahsoka tried to recall what her reflections had said.

Master Plo said he was disappointed. Ahsoka was sure that he was, on some level. How could he not? He'd once told her the only reason he hadn't taken her as his own padawan was because of his duties as a council member. Knowing that she'd grown to be so weak and to watch her turn her back on her place among the Jedi had to hurt. But saying it flat out the way he had...that wasn't like Master Plo. She'd disappointed him in small ways in the past, and his response was always to help build her up, to make her stronger in the future. The mirror-Plo had only torn down.

Mirror-Rex was unbelievable as well. Though she feared his message about her inspiring more desertions and her absence shattering morale might be true, those aren't things Rex would ever say. Complaining and contemplating "what if" just wasn't in his nature. No matter how fierce the fight, he always found a way to focus on the next objective, find a way forward.

Her vision of Barriss though...Ahsoka couldn't be sure what to think of that. She was wearing Trooper armor again, as she had on Corellia. Ahsoka didn't generally picture Barriss that way in her mind, but she couldn't know if that appearance was reflective of present reality, or just the vergence ripping the most recent memory of her old friend from her mind.

And what had mirror-Barriss said about betrayal and a Darth Traya? Something about that title struck a chord deep in Ahsoka's memories. Too deep. She couldn't recall where she'd ever heard it, nor why it should matter.

Putting the three together, Ahsoka felt relatively certain the reflections were manifestations of her own regret, guilt, and disappointment. So if she was going to learn anything from Asajj's reflections, she'd have to be careful to keep that frame of reference in mind.

Ahsoka opened her eyes, looking out at the far off horizon, the world dark and the sky a dim array of a thousand thousand stars.

Should she try to learn anything from their shared vision? Assuming she could put the pieces together and learn what it was that Ventress was hiding about her past, did she have a right to know those things?

Her answer came from the most unlikely source imaginable. A memory from when she was a youngling, studying under Master Yoda. He had asked her class why it is that a Jedi should seek and confront those who have done wrong. Ahsoka had said something about punishment, but Barriss had corrected her, "The people who hurt others once are likely to hurt people again. It's the duty of a Jedi to to teach them to be empathetic. If violence must be employed, it's only for the sake of the future, so they won't be able to cause more harm. Punishment is wrong for the same reason as revenge: harming does not heal."

Asajj has done terrible things in the past. Ahsoka had thought that way back on Coruscant, and her partner had said as much on several occasions since. That hadn't stopped Ahsoka from growing to trust her. So far, she'd done nothing to betray the trust she'd earned. So Ahsoka made her decision.

"Hey, Asajj? You still up?"

Nobody answered Ahsoka's quiet call. Ahsoka rolled onto her side, watching featureless lump of a shadow that hid her partner. "The things on my side of the mirror...they're the things I hate thinking about most. My regrets. Dreams I've abandoned. My shame. The kind of stuff I don't want anyone to know about. I'm guessing yours were the same.

"I want you to know, you don't have to explain anything to me. I've decided to trust who you are, no matter who you were. If you decide not to tell me about what I saw, that's okay. I'm not sure I want to talk to anyone about all my problems, so how could I blame you?

"But I think it might help you to talk about it. Saying things aloud has a way of helping a person sort out their feelings. And if it would help you, that probably means it would help me to do the same. So tomorrow, if you don't mind, I think I want to talk about Barriss."

Ahsoka rolled back onto her back, admiring the leisurely swirling of the cosmos. Ahsoka could remember almost nothing of Shili, certainly not what the stars looked like from there. And the night sky on Coruscant was always so bright. Even as far removed from the commercial districts as the Jedi Temple was, it was a rare evening when even a handful of stars could pierce through the light pollution. Her first time outside its atmosphere had been on a Jedi Starfighter, receiving advanced pilot training from Master Plo. Intellectually, she'd known there were hundreds of billions of stars in their galaxy alone, but to feel all their light upon her skin, to find herself unable to tell which had planets with millions of inhabitants, and which could burn away into nothingness without anyone noticing put the galaxy and her own incredibly tiny place in it into perspective like nothing before. Privately, she considered it the moment she ceased being a youngling, and became a Padawan, albeit one without a master for another three years.

She used to sometimes sneak out when she could find any time away from her superiors, borrowing a ship just so she could stare at the heavens. She used to find her favorite stars, draw pictures between them with her fingers. During her time hopping between stars, she'd often made a point to see which of her pictures had maintained their shapes, and which were stretched, contorted, or annihilated by her new position. Seen from a new distance, the sun above Coruscant was all but indistinguishable from any other place in the sky.

It took time, but even on this remote mountaintop, Ahsoka found stars she recognized: the brilliant gleam of Tatooine's twins, which had once nurtured and tortured her master; the piercing pinprick above Shili, which had watched her birth; the steady yellow glow from a faraway galaxy, whose light had traveled a long time to delight her closing eyes.

"I tortured one brother of mine until he killed another of my brothers."

Ventress was awake, her voice quiet and barely calm in Ahsoka's mind.

"You keep saying that you trust me. You shouldn't. I've done monstrous things. I like to pretend that I was a war hero, but even then I acted without honor. More an assassin than a general, more concerned with my bloodlust than tactics. I like to pretend that all my flaws are Dooku and Talzin's doing, but I conquered half a planet exacting my vengeance for Ky Narec's death, long before I met either. I am none of the things you wish me to be. I just pretend, fake, compound lie upon lie so that you won't leave me like everyone else. The way I've left them."

Ahsoka said nothing at first, taming the vortex of reactions that was so desperate to be heard. She recalled Asajj's words at the base of the mountain, urging her to speak honestly by speaking quickly. She tried to find a middle ground between her hesitation and Asajj's request by delaying.

"When you did those things...after you did those things...an hour, a day, a week later...did you regret them? Did you think they were wrong, at the time?"

"No. I didn't care about right or wrong, about who I was hurting. If I did, I justified everything as being in service to a greater cause: my vengeance. Against Dooku, against the Jedi, against everyone who'd hurt me and everyone who might."

Ahsoka was struck with a kind of clarity, "Then you didn't do them."

"I assure you, I did. And denial solves nothing and excuses less."

Ahsoka spoke over Ventress's continued protests, "Okay, yes, obviously you did those things, but _you_ didn't do those things. If you did those things with a clear conscience then but consider them monstrous and wicked now, than you have changed! Grown! You aren't the same person you were then, so it isn't you who did them."

"You're quibbling over nothing. I haven't righted my wrongs, haven't healed anyone I've hurt. What difference does it make?"

"Everything," Ahsoka said with passion. "Tiny differences are all that separated my sabers from yours: a small twist of the hilt, a few inches of blade length. But you complained constantly because those differences matter."

Asajj somehow mentally projected the impression of rolling her eyes, but that didn't dissuade Ahsoka.

"You might not be able to heal the people you've hurt, but we saved those kids on Corellia."

"For profit. And if we hadn't, someone else would have taken that bounty eventually."

"And on Quarzite, you botched the job, betrayed Fett, and saved Pluma Sodi for profit?"

Asajj shut up.

"Yeah, I looked into that after you told me about how much Aurra Sing hated you. A week stuck in that Bith helmet gave me plenty of time to search the holonet. She's free, and happy, and alive because of you."

"So what? Do you plan to pardon everyone who's ever done anything nice to anyone, no matter their crimes? Dooku spends massive amounts of his own fortune supporting the arts and all sorts of education on Serenno and across the galaxy. Nute Gunray is an affectionate husband and has taken great pains to make sure his family is never anywhere near the war. Are you willing to just forgive their crimes as well?"

"If they were actually sorry, maybe!" Ahsoka realized her blood was racing, her breath hurried and uneven. Hadn't she been nearly asleep a minute ago? "Barriss used to talk about an ancient Jedi, Kreia, who she either adored or abhorred, I'm honestly not sure which. Kreia was famous for a lot of things, but I bring her up because she was exiled from the Jedi for her claim that, 'Only the Sith deal in absolutes.' It's a bit of wisdom that's taught to all Jedi younglings now, a puzzle for them to solve. I didn't even realize it was a paradox, but Barriss pointed out how clever it all is. The statement is itself an absolute, so by refusing to recant it, Kreia was actually claiming to be Sith herself.

"She said there was a bit of the Sith in every Jedi, a bit of the Jedi in every Sith. It was a warning, to never be too confident that you were on the right side. Pay attention to the details, the consequences of your actions, never be satisfied with yourself, never stop thinking."

"Could have used that advice a decade ago…" Ventress muttered.

"You still don't get how incredible you are, do you?" Ahsoka asked. "You were deep in the dark side. Drowning in it. Willing to do anything for more power, every inch the monster you've been claiming to be. And you came back. Do you have any idea how few darksiders have done that in the long, long history of the Jedi? Almost none. Sith might have altruistic motives, or occasionally show moments of kindness, but a full regret of past methods and attempting to be better? It just doesn't happen. That's why the Jedi have such massive sticks so far up our asses. Their asses. To keep them upright, at all costs. Because when a Jedi falls, they don't get back up.

"I love everything that Master Anakin is: heroic, compassionate, surprisingly wise, and more alive than any other Jedi in the order. But the Jedi Council is terrified of him, because he's constantly dancing with the dark side, fostering strong emotions in himself because it gives him the strength to do all the amazing things he does. They think that he's bound to snap one day, to dive too deep into the dark side and never resurface. And honestly, I'm can't say I disagree with them. But when I look at you-the you-you, the person you've become-I see hope. Hope that no matter how deep he dives, he'll find a way to breath.

"So please, don't tell me you can't do what you're already doing. Don't think that someone as incredible and fantastic as you isn't worth saving. Maybe we, as a pair, aren't doing all that much good in the galaxy. There's a war on a hundred planets and we're camping on an unknown planet. But I can't tell you how much good you, as an individual, have done for me. There's good to be done on an interstellar scale. But there's also good to be done just between me and you. And maybe, for now, that's good enough."

Asajj's mind was silent for a long while.

Ahsoka noticed a new cluster of stars appear from behind a cloud she hadn't noticed.

"That's a lot to think about for one night." Asajj eventually thought, an involuntary quaver in her voice that made Ahsoka wonder if thoughts could cry. "I think that's enough for me to sleep on."

Ahsoka smiled. "Sleep sounds good. It's been a long day."

"And Ahsoka?"

"Hmm?"

"Thanks."

Ahsoka closed her eyes to the stars above and all their wars, "You know, your thought-voice is way more beautiful than your throat voice. Fits you much better."


	19. D e s c e n t

**Descent**

"So tell me about Barriss."

The two had woken with the sun. Asajj had waited through a light breakfast and the simple breakdown of their small camp before holding Ahsoka to her promise of the previous night.

Ahsoka visibly flinched at the sound of that name. "Look, I was really tired last night, and the vergence's visions had me confused, and it really isn't very important, and you made me promise not to feel sorry for myself, so can we please not talk about her?"

"No." Asajj took note of the sting of hurt and betrayal on Ahsoka's face and amended her answer. "I mean, yes, obviously you don't have to, and I can't force you. But those reasons are weak. It's a sensitive subject for you, so you know talking about it will hurt. But last night you were sure talking about it would be a good thing. If you've changed your mind, that's one thing, but the Ahsoka I know isn't one to run from pain."

Ahsoka grimaced at the veiled compliment. "It's not that. Well, it's kind of that, probably. But that's not the big part. Mostly it's just...embarassing." Ahsoka took a deep breath, looking up at the morning's multi-hued sky for strength. "Next to you, and everything you've gone through, all my trials just seem so...tiny. Insignificant. Because really, my life has been pretty great. Surrounded by kind people. Always had a sturdy roof over my head and never hesitated to ask for a second plate of food if I was still hungry. Training was hard, sure, but it was also satisfying. Fun, even. What right do I have to complain? Plenty have had it much worse than me."

"Plenty have had it better. Doesn't change your life. You were a child soldier. And I'm right here, asking you to complain. If my life has been so much worse as you think, don't you think I'll have some kind of useful response?"

"...Do you remember Master Luminara Unduli? You fought her once, after we captured Gunray. Of all the Jedi who aren't on the high council-and really, more than most of those who are-she was the most...Jedi. The embodiment of everything we were supposed to be. I love Masters Skywalker and Kenobi, but Anakin was always much too passionate, too attached to his men, and Obi-Wan can't make it through a conversation without saying something that's only true from a ludicrous point of view. But Master Luminara...she was perfect. Kind, compassionate, and skilled, but always aloof, never attached, never invested. Beautiful, but never sexual. Noble, but never condescending. Wise, but willing to learn. Graceful. Confident in the will of the Force. And able to survive a fight with you with a Midichlorian count lower than Hondo Ohnaka. Did you ever meet him?"

Asajj hadn't the faintest idea who Hondo might be, but she didn't want to interject. Now that Ahsoka had started talking, she seemed almost unable, or perhaps unwilling to stop. Even if Asajj had wanted to get a word in edgewise, Ahsoka didn't give her a chance before going on.

"No, sorry, that doesn't matter. The point is, Luminara is who I was supposed to want to be. She wasn't. Before I met him, I wanted to be Obi-Wan, the first man in a thousand years to kill a Sith, and of course when I met Anakin he immediately became my idol. I wanted to be a hero, for generations of Jedi in the future to be told my story.

"And...this is all besides the point. That's all about me. I was never the problem. Maybe. Maybe if I knew what the problem was, there wouldn't be a problem. Ugh.

"Jedi aren't supposed to have friends, but Barriss was mine. Where I was Anakin in miniature, brilliant in a fight and terrible with authority, Barriss mimicked Luminara. She was a scholar first, warrior second. Almost all the stuff I've taught you about lightsaber forms, historical force users, vergences, philosophies on morality; I never would have learned that without Barriss. Before her, everything was very instinctual for me. Go with my gut, mimic people who do things well. I was in all those same classes with her, but the Force always came so easily for me that I never really felt I needed to know the theory behind its use. But spending time with her recently...it was like holding up a mirror to how my life could have been if I'd had a different master. If I'd picked different idols.

"If she fell as far as terrorism, murder, and betrayal despite trying so hard to be perfect, without ever realizing what she was doing was wrong, what hope do I have? I, who never studied philosophy or morality, who has always trusted other people to tell me what to do, whose only real skill in the galaxy is fighting, how can I hope to be the good guy if the only thing I'm good for is hurting the bad guys and I don't trust myself to tell who the bad guys are.

"Being betrayed wasn't the problem. I've been betrayed before. I remember Umbara. Being betrayed by Barriss was the problem. Knowing that all her knowledge didn't make her good. Knowing that for all we talked and laughed and learned and _loved life_ together, I was nothing to her. Being betrayed by the council was the problem. Knowing that for all their experience and wisdom, they could be wrong. They couldn't always be trusted. Knowing that for all that I trained and sweat and killed and bled for them, they didn't trust me. They knew what I'm good for, what I am, what all Jedi are. A weapon, only worthwhile when pointed in the right direction.

"And here I am, acting like I'm innocent in all this, like I didn't turn my back on them when things went bad. Like I didn't run away from Anakin, like I didn't fight against Wolffe and his men. Pretending I'm such a paragon that I can teach you what's right and what's wrong, when I don't even know what to do with myself."

Ahsoka finally fell silent.

A lot of what she'd said spoke emotions Asajj had felt herself. Betrayal. Self doubt. Worthlessness. A horrible, hollow longing of pity and empathy split through Asajj's chest. Maybe that was what Ahsoka needed right now: someone to reassure her, to show her kindness. But that wasn't what Asajj had needed. She'd needed Ahsoka.

So she gave her Asajj. "Tell me, how much of that do you know is bullshit, and how much do I have to explain to you?" Too much Asajj, dial it back. "You're good in a fight, sure, but that's obviously not the only thing you're good for. You're a good pilot, whether you're fighting or not. You're a good teacher, and not bad at telling a story. You lead well, listen well, and you're apparently pretty good at bussing tables. On top of that-"

"Stop it! Please, just...just stop." Ahsoka hands had curled up and around her fractured montrals, as if trying to block out sounds she couldn't hear. "I can't even if you're mocking me or actually trying to be nice, but you're right: most of my issues are fake or petty. Just a bunch of dumb emotions in my head. They don't make sense. That's why I try to ignore them. If I was a proper Jedi, I'd be able to shut everything out. But I just...can't. I'm too weak."

Asajj was stunned. If she'd needed to operate her jaw to speak, she likely wouldn't have been able to manage. "...Is that how you try to live?" she asked, "just repressing everything and pretending nothing you feel matters? Emotions, good or bad...they make us...us. I always thought the Jedi were trained to process their emotions super quickly, but this is what you do? Just pretend you can't feel at all?"

"It's a Jedi's duty to do what is right, to help others. Emotions don't help with that. At best, they're a distraction. At worst, they make people self-centered, limiting their focus to only what they personally care about. They lose sight of the larger galaxy. Become selfish. Fear to lose what's in front of them. Cause more suffering by inaction."

Asajj remembered a conversation on morality she'd shared with Ahsoka, when they were first leaving Coruscant. How long ago had that been? It felt like months. She'd insisted that she was done taking anyone's word on faith. She'd wanted reason, and Ahsoka had accommodated. Best to return the favor.

How can you reason your way into emotion?

"I know emotions can get out of hand. I drowned for years in my own fury. But isn't fear of emotions just another kind of fear? Isn't the reason you fight a compassion for other living things? Nobody can escape emotions. But what your Jedi trained you to do, ignoring every complicated or confusing feeling...ugh. Maybe a person could survive like that, but I don't think they could live. I mean...I know Jedi aren't supposed to get romantically involved, but are you allowed to feel lust? Humor? Enjoy a good meal? Be happy at all?"

"Can't stop a bird from flying over your head." Ahsoka chanted with an air of practiced quotation, "but you don't need to let it nest in your hair."

"We don't have hair."

"You do, actually." Ahsoka reached out and ran her fingers over the fine stubble coating her scalp. An unexpected tingle skated from the points of contact to the nape of her neck and down Asajj's spine. "I didn't even know for sure you could grow hair."

"I shave." Old habit. On Rattatak, after Narec's death, before Dooku, when the Jedi had abandoned her and she had nothing else to define her, the light tattoos across the back of her head had been a strange source of comfort, of identity. After meeting those who'd given her those markings, they mattered less. "Haven't had a chance for that since Corellia."

Stupid. This was a distraction. The girl, so bold with an array of blasters pointed at her, was quick to flee when faced with herself.

"That was another Jedi maxim?" Asajj asked.

"That doesn't make it wrong."

"Do you think it makes it right?"

Ahsoka didn't respond. They walked together for a time. The mountain, so massive from below, was not that large, in truth. None of the impossible geometries or ranching paths they'd seen during the ascent. Their path down was straight, smooth, and easy.

Except the conversation.

Asajj tried to sigh. Her damaged throat's success in such a small task was the first use it had found since Corellia. The spike of pleasure at the victory was immediately smothered under her annoyance that such a paltry labor was the extent of her current abilities.

"I don't know what to say to make you change your mind. I guess nothing I say could do that: you're mind is too strong to change for anyone but yourself."

Ahsoka scoffed. A beautiful, derisive sound, the sort Asajj had made every waking hour of her life for a decade, but which her throat couldn't now manage. Asajj wondered with a bit of strange pride if Ahsoka could have made such a sound before they'd met.

"I just know that you deserve to be happy. And if the Jedi say you shouldn't be happy, then they are wrong. And I know that you're in pain. I know pain. It doesn't go away. You might learn to ignore, think that you're healed, but when you think back upon it, you'll find the wounds raw, bloody, and as agonizing as they've ever been. It doesn't go away. It doesn't heal. It's a part of you now.

"That doesn't mean you deserve it. And it doesn't mean you can't grow past it.

"If the Jedi say you shouldn't feel pain after they hurt you, then they don't know the first thing about life. Life is loss. No, that isn't right. Life after loss is still life. Maybe Jedi teachings work for someone who's never lost anything, but that won't work for me. And it won't work for you.

"You've felt now. Really felt. You understand more of what the galaxy really is. Tell me truly: now that you know this pain, know what other people mean when they talk about how it feels, how the world around you reacts when everything falls apart, would you give it up? If you could, would you give up the knowledge, the experience, go back to pretending that life is simple and loyalty is absolute?"

That was the question she'd meant to ask, but somehow she'd asked a second one along with it. One even more personal, one she'd never voice, one she didn't dare even think. But when Ahsoka looked at her, Asajj knew she had heard it. Asajj wasn't just asking about giving up knowledge, experience, and feelings, but also about what came along with them.

About who came along with them.

The longest silence of Asajj's life followed that question. An eternity packed into a single, terrible, doubt-filled second. The new world, the new life Asajj was striving to build waited upon Ahsoka's answer. The capstone that would let her keep progressing, or cause everything to crumble and force her to start again. Again.

"No." Ahsoka stopped, taking Asajj's hand. "I…" A dazzling smile split Ahsoka's face. "I'm no Jedi."

"You're becoming something more. Something alive."

Ahsoka kissed her.

Asajj flinched back, flabbergasted. Her world bucked underneath her, twisting, warping, turning upside down and inside out. But it didn't break. Yet.

"What are you...why did you...you've never...I didn't mean...not that I...but you shouldn't...I'm too...bwuh?"

Ahsoka had the audacity to giggle. "If I'd known that was all it took to get you to stop making sense, I'd have done that ages ago."

Anger sprang up amidst Asajj's confusion. "Is this some kind of Jedi joke? Do you even know what it means to do what you just did?"

Ahsoka put a finger to Asajj's lips, despite her "speech" no longer needing them. The casual, soft contact did nothing to calm Asajj, and an amused twinkle still danced behind Ahsoka's eyes. "Of course I know what it means. That wasn't my first kiss. I'm sorry, I should have asked first. But if I'm throwing away the Jedi's rules about emotions, then I have a lot of time to make up, because romance sounds amazing."

"And I happened to be close?"

"Yeah. You also happened to be you: the woman who picked me up when I was at my weakest, who opened my eyes to the world around me over and over again. A breathtaking warrior, teacher, and student. A confounding conversationalist. And the person who has done the most for me, purely for the sake of helping me, of anyone in the galaxy. And honestly, pretty sexy to boot, as much as I can understand what sexy even means."

Asajj shook her head, trying to end this conversation without thinking about it. "This can't happen. I'm too old for you."

"By what, five years?"

"A quarter of your life."

"And since when do you care about other people's rules?"

"Not other people's rules. My rules. I don't do romance with people I'm not attracted to."

"So you're saying you're not attracted to me?"

"No." Asajj's answer was too fast, she knew. She hoped Ahsoka wouldn't read anything into it.

The flat refusal did nothing to spoil Ahsoka's high mood. "Well, then I guess I'll just have to seduce you."

Asajj scoffed, but found Ahsoka's mood infectious despite herself. "What do you know of seduction?"

"Nothing at all! But I do have a really hot friend that I'm hoping can teach me."

Asajj smiled, then sighed. "Look, Ahsoka, I really do think this is a bad idea."

"You're probably right. Which is why I'm dropping it. For now. But I just want you to know that if you ever-ever-change your mind. Well, I don't plan on being far away."

The remainder of their descent proved uneventful. The path was not overly steep, and clear of debris. Asajj broadcast a few songs from her memory; the Jedi temple did not encourage musical pursuits. As they neared the mountain's base, they made no celebration, felt no outstanding victory, and made no ceremony crossing the arched threshold.

Immediately upon the other side, however, they felt a third party speak into their minds. "The council of elders, in light of your failure, insists that you depart our planet immediately." The Miralukan emissary was ready for them, standing stiff, mouth pursed, some fifty feet away. "You may not appeal this decision, as the location of our village is a precious secret. Respect their decision, or suffer the consequences."

"Oh, right." Asajj had half-forgotten why they'd faced the vergence in the first place. "Ship is still busted though, so we can't really leave. We won't bother you though, if you're worried about that."

Ahsoka eschewed the mental connection, yelling aloud, "Making threats now? I thought your society was too high and enlightened to do that sort of thing."

The emissary's face-or at least, the parts visible around the thick blindfold-filled with color. "A reasoned argument is only a viable alternative to violence when the opposing party can comprehend and respond in kind. When dealing with babes and wild animals, a more direct solution must be sought."

Ahsoka's retort was quick in it's coming, "So we're babes and wild animals, are we? Then maybe-"

Asajj had never known Ahsoka to have such a fierce temper, and wondered for a moment whether her revelations of the past day were positive developments. She interrupted before more harm could be done, "We didn't fail. We reached the summit."

"Lies. There is no summit. The path leads to a cave. I applaud you for surviving, but I have no time for your decep-"

The Emissary's jaw dropped as Ahsoka produced one of the two blood-red kyber crystals. "Impossible. A forgery."

"A forgery of what, precisely?" Asajj asked, displaying her own, equally red crystal.

The Emissary could only whisper, "Marr." After a moment, she began muttering rapidly through their connection, clearly enough to be understood, but likely only for her own benefit. "The two of you should not have been able to achieve this thing. Neither of you are near powerful enough. Yet somehow, together, you have prevailed. Two useless things, made useful together. A wheel and an axle. A lever and a fulcrum."

She seemed to gather her composure, visibly straightening her neck and back. "To hell with the elders. I'll deal with them. My people would be honored if you would visit our village. You may stay as long as you like, as long as it takes to repair your ship. There is much we can teach you. And much, I feel, we can learn. Please, come with me."

Ahsoka shrugged to Asajj, and they left together.


	20. Chapter 20-35

If you've been paying very close attention, you may have noticed that the title to chapter 19 was oddly formatted. That's a quirk of ; I was going for a duplicate title to drive home the similarities and differences between descending the Jedi Temple in chapter one versus descending Mount Vergence, but the medium got in the way of the idea. Oh well.

More relevantly, I'm suspending this story for now. At one point, I was hoping to have the entire thing completed before Clone Wars season 7 was released, but I simply don't see that happening with my schedule at the moment. This obviously isn't the end of the story: Ahsoka has nothing to do with the rebellion, and while I've expanded on Asajj and Barriss's stories, I've come nowhere near to completing them. And I may never have time to do so. Honestly, a large part of me hopes I never have time to do so. While writing an actual Star Wars novel would be fantastic, writing fanfiction is too time consuming of a task right now in my life.

But, in thanks for making it this far, I don't want to leave all of you hanging. So, if you'd like to know how I see things turning out, behold my storyboards (which nearly never survive the writing process, and likely would have been altered significantly if I actually wrote them).

Spoilers ahoy, obviously.

 **20\. Death Knell** A year or so later, Ahsoka is just finishing the repairs to the _Banshee_ when she is asked on a date by a Miralukan girl. She has no idea how to deal with the situation and runs back to the Banshee. Meanwhile, Asajj has felt the death of Count Dooku, and is discussing her mixed reaction with the Emissary. This sparks a heavy conversation on what exactly they plan to do with the rest of their lives, the . They eventually decide to let the galaxy deal with its own problems and enjoy the peace they've found. Ahsoka accepts the invitation.

 **21\. Date Night** Ahsoka goes to dinner with the aforementioned Miralukan girl. They have dinner, talk about the galaxy, sight, the light side and love. They were just starting to explore the realm of physical affection when Ahsoka felt Plo Koon's death on the nearby Cato Neimoidia. This intimate experience tied with tragedy rather sours Ahsoka's interest in romantic pursuits for a long time. She makes some panicked excuse before running to explain the situation to Asajj.

 **22\. Revenge for the Jedi** Following her instincts, Ahsoka is able to guide the Banshee to the wreckage of Plo Koon's ship, where she finds the Wolffe Pack confirming his death. Deprived of caution by her emotional state, Ahsoka nearly dies without a fight before Asajj's warning gets through to her. Sorrow shifting quickly to rage and hatred, Ahsoka deliberately draws on the Dark Side and takes down the Wolff Pack with her bare hands. It was only when Ahsoka was choking the life out of Wolf that Asajj managed to get through to her, pointing out the clones altered mind-state. Asajj managed to kill the biological control chip in Wolffe's head, leaving the clone commander terrified rather than mindlessly murderous, and perfectly willing to answer their questions. Questions which led them to Coruscant.

 **23\. Flight of the Old Master** Immediately upon arriving at the Jedi Temple, A+A encounter an uncharacteristically distraught Yoda. He speaks to A+A of the Jedi's failure, and when Ahsoka tries to encourage him by reminiscing on his own lessons, he urges her to ignore his advice and his teachings, as he is questioning them himself. He even ruminates on the possibility that Sidious's rise may be for the good of the galaxy, given that the Force has not led to his downfall. Yoda canonically leaves Coruscant with Bail Organa.

 **24\. The Empty Temple** At Asajj's insistence (at dream Obi-Wan's insistence), A+A enter the Jedi Temple, now a mass grave for Jedi and Clones. They visit Ahsoka's old room (left untouched and clearly ready for her return), the armory (where they find Ventress's old sabers), the council chambers (now decorated with younglings and absent any meaning). The experience as a whole is continuously traumatic for Ahsoka, and little better for Ventress as she sees the life she could have lived but now has lost. Ahsoka's loss is tinged with guilt, an emotional cocktail Ventress knows well and can walk her through. There's a moment of terrible and beautiful catharsis as Ahsoka expresses her emotions fully, sobbing in grief in the Council chambers, and Asajj gets down on her knees just to hold her friend and partner.

 **25\. Union of Light and Darkness** This moment is interrupted by the arrival of Barriss and Maul. Barriss is utterly emotionless throughout this chapter, as she explains that she has achieved her purpose (deleting certain information from the Jedi Archives to keep it out of Sidious's hands) and that now she is paying for Maul's subservience: by desecrating places which he thinks she considers sacred. Ahsoka, disgusted, lashes out at Maul, but Barriss defends him, finding the former Sith useful. She attempts to recruit A+A as well, but is heartily rebuffed. Ahsoka urges Barriss not to directly oppose Sid, echoing Yoda's lines on his power, but Barriss reiterates her new philosophy wherein the Force makes use of all assets. The Jedi are corrupt, so Sidious served the light by destroying them. Maul will serve the light by destroying Sid. And Barriss will ensure the light never fades. Barriss consequently has no compunctions about "suffering" Maul's "humiliations." Keep the sexuality at Dorath levels of implication. A+A leave, unaware of her intentions and potential. Realizing that there would be records of their visit, and consequently proof of their survival, A+A proceed to the archives to delete any record of their presence.

 **26\. Sinister Questions** While in the Archives, A+A discover Kenobi's beacon message, which fascinated Ventress. Further, they found that Barriss hadn't deleted the relevant files, but had instead transferred them, and had left intact a lot of information that could prove very dangerous (not least, prospective force children) and the families of the Jedi Order. Before A+A could rectify the situation, the Inquisitorius fell upon them. Five against two was hard odds, but A+A worked well together and had much more combat experience. Even so, the Grand Inquisitor was clever, and, recognizing that they were more concerned with protecting each other than themselves, rapidly produced a ploy to exploit Asajj's protection, and severed her right arm at the shoulder. Somehow, inexplicably, Asajj feel no panic, but rather a calmness, one which spreads to Ahsoka. Flowing with the light side, they survive the Inquisition, load several crates with holocrons, and escape the temple aboard the _Crucible_ (the Banshee having been stolen by Barriss and Maul) (Ahsoka succeeded in integrating a clone-destroyed Professor Huyang into the ship's computer). Eager to disappear, Ahsoka sets a course for _The Wheel_.

 **27\. Running in Circles** With assets frozen and no cash on hand, A+A are left in much the same situation they were in when they first left Coruscant: no cash, no friends, no love from the government, two lightsabers to their name. While Asajj adjusts to a life with half the arms, Ahsoka copes with the trauma of Order 66. And they do it together. Part of their coping is achieved via the construction of new lightsaber housings for the crystals they found on the Mount, and purging the red from Komari Vosa's. A weak-minded salvage mechanic (Pace Freemaker) is mind-tricked into quietly scrapping the Crucible and getting a new ship for A+A: the _Flaming Egg_.

 **28\. Going Home** They encounter Merth once again, and he's thrilled at how well A+A are coping, but is mildly concerned by how much they're dependent upon each other. Merth goes on to explain that he's spoken with Yoda and Kenobi, and that they did delete a lot of the personal information of jedi who they knew survived the purge, so Ahsoka is safe to meet with her family. This seems as safe a retreat as any that A+A can think of, so they part ways with Merth once again. They depart for Shili, but mid-flight, Ahsoka has a realization: she doesn't need her parents' support, and doesn't really want a life of safety. For all the trauma, stress, and difficulty, she enjoys fighting, making the galaxy a better place. Asajj disagrees. She says Ahsoka is her best self, brave and compassionate, when she is fighting, but fighting brings out the worst in Asajj: cruelty and rage. Asajj is more motivated by her desire to fix her own mistakes, but her inability to atone for Savage makes her more than willing to replace that sin with a separate atonement. Since neither of them can hope to compete with a threat that Yoda couldn't handle, they set their sights lower: Barriss and Maul.

 **29\. Finding a Purpose** With this new goal in mind, Ahsoka begins the hunt, searching for any current clues. With no reports of an assault on Sidious himself, Ahsoka becomes convinced that Barriss is searching for more power, likely from one of her old histories. Asajj is concerned that Ahsoka is more concerned with revenge than any kind of justice; if Barriss opposed Sidious, isn't that a good thing? Ahsoka explained the scope of Wounds in the Force, the Star Forge, and other superpowers of the Old Republic era that Barriss was obsessed with, and the difference in scope versus the threat that Sidious presented, that if Barriss succeeded, nothing could stop her and Maul. With those stakes in mind, Asajj agrees to one last mission. And she has a thought on how to find the unfindable.

 **30\. Return to Dathomir** While she knows that all the nightsisters are dead, Asajj hopes to find some kind of record or instruction on nightsister magicks. Instead, upon arrival on Dathomir, she finds Talzin, desperately trying to heal several injuries inflicted by Maul. Barriss considered Talzin a wildcard on part with Jabba, even without her clan, and sent Maul to tie up loose ends. Talzin tries to body-hop into Asajj, but is rebuffed and cast out. A+A manage to find instructions on a ritual that could find Barriss (with torture and murder as optional features), written on paper of all things, but also discover that nightsister magic is dependent upon the pain (and assorted viscera) of the nightbrothers. And the nightbrothers were all gone.

 **31\. Oppressive Regret** Standing in Savage's home, Ventress is consumed by regret and finally admits what she did to Ahsoka. This proves to be more catharsis than drama; Ahsoka's experiences with Barriss have more than convinced her that people can change. This chapter is the last calm before the final storm, an emphatic affirmation of their affinity and love for each other. With no clear path or purpose, they return to _The Flaming Egg_ and fall asleep together. Sleep cute.

 **32\. Intent to Wound** With no other leads on Barriss, A+A are reduced to searching for obtuse hints of her passage in the news. They are struck by a bounty from Jabba asking for the return of several cruisers (and the disembowelment of the thieves), saying that onboard tracking devices are still active, and indicate that they can be found on Malachor.. Ahsoka recognizes the planet's name, triggering a memory of Barriss waxing poetic on the events of KOTOR II. They realize Barriss intends to become a wound in the Force by repairing and activating the Mass Shadow Generator, sacrificing the nightbrothers in the process. Trusting their instincts, (and risking revealing themselves to any number of bounty hunters in the process), they jump to Malachor.

 **33\. Core of Malice** Malachor V, the site of the MSG's detonation, is now an asteroid ring with a decaying orbit around the planet Malachor. Their arrival is noticed by a number of bounty hunters, who A+A manage to defeat, but who also successfully cripple the _Flaming Egg_. Asajj senses their destination is on a hyper-meteorite which contains the remnants of the Trayus Academy, which itself was built around the MSG, and Ahsoka manages to pilot what's left of the ship. While Barriss reconstructs the MSG, A+A are delayed from confronting her by Darth Maul and the deceived Nightbrothers. Asajj's past refuses to forget; the nightbrothers trust Maul and desperately hate Ventress. She is unable to convince them, but also unwilling to harm them, so while Ahsoka duels Maul, Asajj uses her arm and leg wraps as impromptu bindings to restrain the nightbrothers. Ahsoka abandons her fight at the first opportunity, keeping perspective on the importance of Barriss and the MSG. Maul isn't a fan of her methods, attempts to goad her, and then tries to pull down the Academy's roof as Ahsoka escapes inside. The stone collapses, but Ahsoka is saved by the intervention of Asajj, lifting rocks.

 **34\. The Last Betrayal** While Maul and Ventress each keep the other from clearing the rubble and entering the academy, Ahsoka enters its deepest chambers. Along the way, she notices that much of the chaotic Sith architecture has been remodeled into something reminiscent of the Jedi Temple by Barriss. Ahsoka finds her old friend in the Academy's innermost sanctum. Barriss is utterly emotionless, and has no desire to fight yet; she expected that there might be a Nihilus to her Surik. She'd expected Maul to play the role, but is satisfied with Ahsoka. She makes no move to fight Ahsoka. Taunting/philosophical grandstanding from both sides. Fight. Barriss doesn't use a saber, having mastered Tutaminis, energy absorption, allowing her to block a lightsaber with her bare hands. With her shiny new lightsabers now useless, and her telekinesis matched by Offee's, Ahsoka is forced to make do with her fists. This proves remarkably effective, as Luminara never encouraged her student to develop her own physicality. Meanwhile, Maul is a superior duelist to Ventress, but her unorthodox telekinetic style gives her an edge she readily exploits. Ventress de-legs Maul (once again) and then knocks him out with a blow to the head before flinging his saber as far from her as she can manage. She finds the Ahsoka and Barriss fight near ended, Ahsoka strangling Barriss. Ventress convinces Ahsoka to spare her, then kills Barriss herself, reasoning that Barriss needed to die, but that the act would cause Ahsoka undue harm.

 **35\. End of an Alliance** By the time A+A come to terms with the situation, utterly dismantle the MSG, and leave the academy, Maul has disappeared, as has the _Flaming Egg_. A+A contact the Miraluka, and, with their permission, offer the Nightbrothers a new home there, which they accept. Asajj decides to stay with them, primarily as protection, but potentially as Great Mother, like Talzin before her; it's an open question whether or not the Miraluka can produce offspring with a Dathomorian, and it would be a cruelty to deprive the race of a future. Ahsoka points out that Barriss and Maul were starter villains compared to Palpatine and the Inquisitorius, but Ventress contends that this isn't her fight. Now is the time to watch; perhaps peace under Sith is better than war.  
POV switch to the Phoenix squad: it wasn't. Anti-alien sentiment was fostered across the galaxy, slavery made commonplace, crime allowed to flourish. Ahsoka did her best to treat the symptoms, ultimately united disparate rebel cells into a full rebellion, and the rest they know, or can learn elsewhere. She spells out the moral, espousing the virtue of gray over white or black, the universal potential for redemption, the value of friends. And then she spoke Asajj's fate. Early in the Empire's peace, a member of the Inquisitorius, after doing massive research on Corellia, successfully triangulated their random escape route and found the Miralukan planet. Ahsoka found that message and silenced the messenger, but the Empire heard the message as well: by the time Tano got to the unknown regions to check on her friend, there was nothing to be found. No sign of a battle, no sign of a civilization. Maybe the Empire cleaned up after themselves, but more likely Asajj managed to escape. Ahsoka begged Ezra not to search her out for training or recruitment: this is not her fight, she's earned her peace.

 **Epilogue** Three days later, Ventress arrived at Phoenix Home, heavy with child. She came not with questions, but with a single piece of news before departing to regions unknown. Ahsoka did not die. Finis.


End file.
